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Attendees to Tate Modern are familiar to unusual displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an man-made sun, descended down spiral slides, and observed robotic sea creatures hovering through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nose cavities of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a winding structure inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal airways. Upon entering, they can wander around or chill out on skins, tuning in on headphones to Sámi elders sharing narratives and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It may sound playful, but the artwork honors a rarely recognized biological feat: scientists have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it inhales by 80°C, allowing the creature to survive in harsh Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "produces a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, young adult author, and environmental activist, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that creates the potential to shift your perspective or trigger some humility," she adds.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine installation is one of several elements in Sara's immersive commission showcasing the traditions, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They've endured oppression, forced assimilation, and repression of their dialect by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the art also draws attention to the community's challenges associated with the global warming, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Components

On the long entrance ramp, there's a towering, 26-metre sculpture of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It represents a metaphor for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this part of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, wherein dense layers of ice appear as fluctuating weather melt and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season food, moss. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they transported trailers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured tundra to distribute manually. The herd gathered round us, digging the icy ground in vain for mossy pieces. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a significant influence on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the other option is starvation. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after plunging into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

This artwork also underscores the stark difference between the industrial view of electricity as a asset to be harnessed for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an natural power in creatures, humans, and the environment. This venue's past as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be standard bearers for clean sources, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the building 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 rooted in environmental protection," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the discourse of sustainability, but still it's just striving to find better ways to persist in patterns of expenditure."

Family Struggles

She and her relatives have themselves disagreed with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent rules on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's sibling initiated a sequence of unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his herd, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara created a extended series of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal screen of 400 animal bones, which was shown at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it resides in the lobby.

Art as Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression appears the only realm in which they can be listened to by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|