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Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to surprising encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an artificial sun, descended down spiral slides, and observed robotic jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a labyrinthine construction inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can meander around or relax on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to community leaders sharing narratives and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It could appear quirky, but the artwork celebrates a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a feeling of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a former journalist, young adult author, and rights advocate, who comes from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that fosters the chance to alter your viewpoint or spark some modesty," she adds.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The maze-like structure is among various features in Sara's immersive commission showcasing the culture, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced persecution, cultural suppression, and suppression of their dialect by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and founding narrative, the art also highlights the group's struggles relating to the global warming, property rights, and external control.

Meaning in Components

Along the lengthy entrance incline, there's a looming, 26-metre sculpture of reindeer hides ensnared by power and light cables. It serves as a symbol for the political and economic systems limiting 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, whereby solid layers of ice develop as changing conditions liquefy and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' main cold-season sustenance, fungus. Goavvi is a consequence of global heating, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Far North than elsewhere.

A few years back, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they hauled carts of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to distribute manually. The reindeer crowded round us, scratching the icy ground in vain attempts for mossy pieces. This resource-intensive and demanding procedure is having a significant effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the other option is death. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—some from hunger, others suffocating after falling into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the work is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

The installation also highlights the sharp contrast between the modern interpretation of energy as a resource to be exploited for profit and survival and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an inherent power in animals, humans, and the environment. Tate Modern's legacy as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be exemplars for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi assert their human rights, incomes, and traditions are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to stand your ground when the reasons are based on saving the world," Sara comments. "Extractivism has co-opted the rhetoric of sustainability, but still it's just aiming to find alternative ways to persist in habits of expenditure."

Personal Challenges

She and her kin have themselves conflicted with the national administration over its tightening policies on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a multi-year series of creations named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal screen of 400 reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

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