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Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've basked under an simulated sun, glided down spiral slides, and witnessed automated jellyfish hovering through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nose passages of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this cavernous space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a labyrinthine design based on the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal airways. Once inside, they can meander around or relax on pelts, listening on earphones to tribal seniors imparting tales and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It may seem whimsical, but the artwork honors a little-known natural marvel: scientists have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it takes in by 80°C, helping the animal to endure in harsh Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "produces a sense of smallness that you as a person are not superior over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who is from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that generates the possibility to change your perspective or trigger some humility," she continues.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The maze-like design is among various components in Sara's immersive exhibition honoring the traditions, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. 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 territory they call Sápmi). They have endured persecution, forced assimilation, and suppression of their language by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the work also spotlights the group's struggles associated with the global warming, property rights, and imperialism.

Meaning in Components

At the extended access ramp, there's a looming, 26-metre sculpture of reindeer hides ensnared by utility lines. It serves as a symbol for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this section of the installation, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, whereby thick coatings of ice develop as changing weather liquefy and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' main winter food, fungus. This phenomenon is a result of planetary warming, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than elsewhere.

A few years back, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they carried trailers of food pellets on to the barren Arctic plains to provide manually. The reindeer crowded round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain attempts for vegetative bits. This expensive and laborious process is having a significant effect on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the alternative is starvation. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from starvation, others drowning after plunging into streams through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the installation is a monument to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The installation also emphasizes the clear contrast between the industrial interpretation of energy as a asset to be exploited for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an innate essence in animals, people, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by regional governments. As they strive to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi contend their human rights, livelihoods, and way of life are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to defend yourself when the arguments are rooted in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has adopted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but still it's just striving to find better ways to persist in habits of expenditure."

Personal Conflicts

Sara and her family have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother initiated a sequence of unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, apparently to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara produced a four-year collection of creations named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge curtain of four hundred cranial remains, which was shown at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Activism

For many Sámi, creative work seems the exclusive realm in which they can be understood by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|