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Guests to Tate Modern are familiar to surprising encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an simulated sun, glided down spiral slides, and seen AI-powered jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a winding construction inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can stroll around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on earphones to community leaders telling narratives and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It might seem quirky, but the installation honors a rarely recognized scientific wonder: experts have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it takes in by eighty degrees, helping the creature to survive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "creates a feeling of smallness that you as a human being are not in control over nature." The artist is a former reporter, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that creates the possibility to change your outlook or spark some modesty," she adds.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine design is among various components in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They have endured oppression, cultural suppression, and suppression of their tongue by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the work also highlights the group's issues relating to the climate crisis, property rights, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Materials

At the lengthy entrance slope, there's a soaring, 26-metre sculpture of skins trapped by utility lines. It serves as a metaphor for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this component of the installation, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, wherein thick layers of ice appear as fluctuating temperatures thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season food, fungus. This phenomenon is a result of global heating, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Far North than elsewhere.

Previously, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and went with Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they carried trailers of supplementary feed on to the barren Arctic plains to distribute manually. The herd gathered round us, scratching the slippery ground in vain attempts for vegetative pieces. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a significant effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. However the other option is malnutrition. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from lack of food, others submerging after plunging into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the work is a monument to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

This artwork also emphasizes the sharp divergence between the industrial interpretation of electricity as a commodity to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an natural life force in animals, individuals, and nature. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, river barriers, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their human rights, incomes, and culture are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the justifications are grounded in global sustainability," Sara observes. "Mining practices has adopted the discourse of ecology, but still it's just attempting to find better ways to persist in habits of expenditure."

Family Challenges

The artist and her relatives have themselves disagreed with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a set of unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his livestock, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara produced a multi-year series of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge curtain of 400 reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the the event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Awareness

Among the community, visual expression seems the sole domain in which they can be heard by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|