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Guests to Tate Modern are familiar to surprising encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've basked under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and seen AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this immense space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a labyrinthine construction inspired by the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Upon entering, they can stroll around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on headphones to Sámi elders imparting stories and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It might seem whimsical, but the installation pays tribute to a obscure natural marvel: experts have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the animal to endure in harsh Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "generates a feeling of inferiority that you as a human being are not in control over nature." She is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and land defender, who hails from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Maybe that creates the chance to shift your perspective or spark some modesty," she states.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The winding structure is among various components in Sara's engaging art project honoring the culture, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They have endured persecution, integration policies, and suppression of their dialect by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and founding narrative, the installation also spotlights the community's struggles associated with the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and external control.

Meaning in Materials

At the extended entrance ramp, there's a soaring, 26-meter structure of pelts entangled by electrical wires. It serves as a analogy for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this component of the artwork, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein solid layers of ice form as fluctuating weather melt and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter nourishment, fungus. The condition is a outcome of planetary warming, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Far North than elsewhere.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they transported trailers of food pellets on to the exposed tundra to distribute manually. The herd gathered round us, pawing the frozen ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered bits. This costly and labour-intensive method is having a drastic effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the alternative is starvation. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others drowning after sinking in lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the work is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

The sculpture also underscores the stark contrast between the industrial understanding of electricity as a asset to be utilized for profit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an natural power in creatures, humans, and nature. This venue's legacy as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be exemplars for sustainable power, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and culture are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the rhetoric of ecology, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to persist in habits of expenditure."

Individual Conflicts

The artist and her family have personally clashed with the state authorities over its tightening rules on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's brother initiated a set of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his livestock, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara developed a extended set of creations named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge screen of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

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