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Attendees to Tate Modern are used to unusual displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've basked under an simulated sun, descended down spiral slides, and seen AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like design modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can wander around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on earphones to community leaders sharing narratives and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It could appear playful, but the installation celebrates a rarely recognized scientific wonder: experts have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to endure in harsh Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "produces a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not in control over nature." Sara is a ex- journalist, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who hails from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that fosters the potential to shift your perspective or spark some humbleness," she states.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The maze-like installation is among various components in Sara's engaging commission honoring the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi total about 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They've endured oppression, cultural suppression, and suppression of their tongue by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the work also spotlights the group's issues associated with the climate crisis, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Meaning in Elements

On the long entrance slope, there's a towering, 26-metre formation of skins entangled by utility lines. It represents a symbol for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this component of the artwork, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, wherein thick layers of ice form as changing weather melt and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' key cold-season nourishment, fungus. Goavvi is a consequence of global heating, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Far North than globally.

Previously, I met with Sara in a remote town during a icy season and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they carried containers of food pellets on to the barren tundra to dispense through labor. These animals crowded round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain for mossy morsels. This costly and demanding procedure is having a severe impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the choice is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are perishing—a number from starvation, others drowning after falling into water bodies through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the art is a monument to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

This artwork also underscores the clear divergence between the western understanding of electricity as a commodity to be harnessed for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi worldview of energy as an inherent life force in animals, individuals, and land. The gallery's past as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be standard bearers for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their human rights, livelihoods, and traditions are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to protect your rights when the reasons are rooted in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Extractivism has appropriated the discourse of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just striving to find more suitable ways to maintain patterns of use."

Individual Struggles

Sara and her relatives have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a series of finally failed court actions over the required reduction of his herd, supposedly to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a multi-year set of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal drape of numerous cranial remains, which was shown at the the event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it resides in the lobby.

Art as Advocacy

Among the community, visual expression seems the only realm in which they can be listened to by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|