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Visitors to Tate Modern are familiar to unusual experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an man-made sun, descended down amusement rides, and seen robotic jellyfish hovering through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal cavities of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a maze-like structure based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on skins, listening on earphones to tribal seniors imparting narratives and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It may appear playful, but the installation pays tribute to a rarely recognized scientific wonder: scientists have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it breathes in by eighty degrees, enabling the creature to endure in inhospitable Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "creates a perception of inferiority that you as a human being are not in control over nature." She is a former writer, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that creates the chance to change your perspective or spark some humbleness," she continues.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The winding design is among various components in Sara's immersive exhibition celebrating the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They have endured oppression, cultural suppression, and repression of their tongue by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the work also spotlights the people's challenges associated with the climate crisis, property rights, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Components

On the extended entrance ramp, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot formation of pelts ensnared by power and light cables. It represents a symbol for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this component of the installation, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid layers of ice form as varying conditions liquefy and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary cold-season sustenance, lichen. This phenomenon is a consequence of planetary warming, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than in other regions.

A few years back, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they hauled containers of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to distribute by hand. The herd crowded round us, pawing the frozen ground in futility for vegetative bits. This resource-intensive and demanding method is having a severe impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the choice is starvation. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others drowning after sinking in streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the work is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The installation also underscores the stark contrast between the western interpretation of electricity as a resource to be harnessed for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of life force as an inherent power in creatures, humans, and the environment. Tate Modern's past as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be leaders for clean sources, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, river barriers, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and culture are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to protect your rights when the arguments are based on saving the world," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find alternative ways to continue practices of expenditure."

Individual Struggles

Sara and her kin have themselves conflicted with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent regulations on herding. In 2016, Sara's sibling initiated a series of unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, apparently to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a multi-year series of creations called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge curtain of four hundred animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Activism

Among the community, art seems the sole realm in which they can be listened to by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|