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Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to unexpected displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've basked under an man-made sun, descended down amusement rides, and observed automated sea creatures drifting through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this cavernous space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a maze-like structure based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, listening on earphones to community leaders imparting narratives and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It may appear quirky, but the exhibit honors a little-known scientific wonder: scientists have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it takes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to thrive in harsh Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "creates a feeling of smallness that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- journalist, young adult author, and rights advocate, who hails from a herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the potential to alter your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she states.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The maze-like structure is part of a features in Sara's immersive exhibition showcasing the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count about 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured persecution, forced assimilation, and repression of their language by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the installation also draws attention to the group's challenges connected to the climate crisis, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Meaning in Elements

On the long entry ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter formation of skins ensnared by utility lines. It represents a analogy for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this section of the exhibit, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby solid layers of ice develop as changing conditions liquefy and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, fungus. The condition is a outcome of climate change, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than in other regions.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to distribute through labor. The herd surrounded round us, pawing the slippery ground in futility for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and laborious process is having a significant impact on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the other option is starvation. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are dying—some from hunger, others suffocating after falling into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the installation is a memorial to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The sculpture also emphasizes the sharp contrast between the industrial interpretation of power as a commodity to be utilized for profit and existence and the Sámi worldview of life force as an inherent life force in animals, individuals, and the environment. The gallery's past as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, river barriers, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and traditions are at risk. "It's hard being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the justifications are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has adopted the language of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find better ways to persist in habits of consumption."

Personal Struggles

The artist and her family have personally clashed with the state authorities over its tightening rules on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's brother undertook a sequence of unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara developed a four-year collection of creations named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal curtain of numerous animal bones, which was exhibited at the the show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Art as Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, art seems the only realm in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|