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Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to surprising experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've basked under an artificial sun, slid down spiral slides, and witnessed robotic sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this huge space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a labyrinthine construction inspired by the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Upon entering, they can meander around or chill out on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to community leaders sharing tales and insights.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It could appear playful, but the installation celebrates a obscure natural marvel: scientists have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to thrive in extreme Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "generates a sense of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." The artist is a ex- journalist, young adult author, and land defender, who is from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that creates the possibility to shift your perspective or spark some modesty," she adds.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine installation is among various components in Sara's engaging commission celebrating the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They've experienced persecution, integration policies, and repression of their language by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also highlights the community's issues connected to the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and external control.

Meaning in Materials

Along the lengthy entry slope, there's a looming, 26-meter structure of skins entangled by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the artwork, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, wherein thick layers of ice develop as varying conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary winter food, lichen. Goavvi is a outcome of planetary warming, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than in other regions.

A few years back, I met with Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and went with Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they carried carts of animal nutrition on to the exposed Arctic plains to provide manually. These animals gathered round us, digging the frozen ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered morsels. This resource-intensive and laborious method is having a significant effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. But the alternative is starvation. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are perishing—some from hunger, others submerging after falling into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the art is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

This artwork also underscores the stark difference between the industrial understanding of power as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an inherent power in creatures, people, and nature. Tate Modern's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be exemplars for clean sources, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and culture are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to stand your ground when the reasons are based on global sustainability," Sara comments. "Extractivism has adopted the rhetoric of ecology, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to continue habits of consumption."

Individual Challenges

She and her family have themselves disagreed with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent regulations on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother initiated a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara produced a extended set of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge curtain of 400 animal bones, which was exhibited at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

For many Sámi, art seems the sole realm in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|