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Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to surprising displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an artificial sun, descended down helter skelters, and witnessed robotic sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this immense space—created by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a winding construction based on the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Once inside, they can stroll around or chill out on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders sharing stories and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It might appear whimsical, but the artwork honors a rarely recognized biological feat: experts have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it breathes in by eighty degrees, helping the animal to survive in extreme Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "generates a feeling of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." The artist is a former reporter, children's author, and environmental activist, who hails from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that fosters the chance to alter your perspective or spark some modesty," she states.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The winding installation is part of a components in Sara's engaging exhibition showcasing the traditions, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They've experienced oppression, cultural suppression, and suppression of their language by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the art also highlights the community's issues connected to the global warming, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Meaning in Components

On the extended access incline, there's a looming, 26-meter formation of reindeer hides entangled by electrical wires. It represents a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this component of the installation, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, wherein solid coatings of ice form as fluctuating conditions liquefy and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary cold-season food, fungus. Goavvi is a consequence of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than globally.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and joined Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they transported trailers of animal nutrition on to the exposed frozen landscape to provide by hand. The herd gathered round us, digging the frozen ground in vain for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and labour-intensive process is having a drastic effect on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the choice is malnutrition. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are succumbing—some from starvation, others drowning after plunging into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the installation is a monument to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The installation also underscores the sharp contrast between the modern understanding of energy as a asset to be exploited for profit and survival and the Sámi worldview of life force as an inherent power in creatures, humans, and the environment. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, river barriers, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi contend their legal protections, ways of life, and way of life are at risk. "It's hard being such a limited population to protect your rights when the reasons are based on saving the world," Sara observes. "Extractivism has adopted the language of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find better ways to maintain habits of consumption."

Personal Challenges

The artist and her family have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter policies on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother embarked on a series of unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara developed a multi-year collection of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal screen of 400 reindeer skulls, which was shown at the the show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it hangs in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work is the only realm in which they can be listened to by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|