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Guests to Tate Modern are used to unexpected experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They have basked under an artificial sun, descended down helter skelters, and seen robotic sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nose chambers of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this immense space—developed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a winding construction based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or chill out on skins, tuning in on headphones to community leaders sharing stories and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It may sound quirky, but the exhibit celebrates a little-known natural marvel: scientists have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "generates a sense of inferiority that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a ex- reporter, children's author, and environmental activist, who comes from a herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that fosters the possibility to alter your outlook or evoke some humility," she states.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The winding installation is one of several elements in Sara's immersive art project honoring the traditions, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced persecution, integration policies, and repression of their language by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the work also spotlights the people's struggles associated with the global warming, land dispossession, and external control.

Symbolism in Components

On the extended entry ramp, there's a soaring, 26-meter sculpture of pelts entangled by electrical wires. It represents a symbol for the societal frameworks limiting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this section of the installation, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which dense sheets of ice form as fluctuating weather thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary cold-season sustenance, moss. Goavvi is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Arctic than globally.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a icy season and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they transported carts of food pellets on to the exposed frozen landscape to distribute by hand. These animals gathered round us, pawing the icy ground in vain for mossy bits. This costly and laborious method is having a significant effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the alternative is starvation. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are dying—a number from hunger, others drowning after falling into streams through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the installation is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

This artwork also underscores the sharp divergence between the modern view of electricity as a asset to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an natural essence in creatures, humans, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by regional governments. In their efforts to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and traditions are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to protect your rights when the reasons are grounded in environmental protection," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has adopted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to maintain patterns of use."

Family Struggles

Sara and her relatives have personally clashed with the national administration over its increasingly stringent rules on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara created a extended series of creations named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge drape of four hundred animal bones, which was shown at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the entrance.

Art as Awareness

Among the community, art is the sole domain in which they can be understood by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|