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Guests to Tate Modern are used to unexpected encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, slid down spiral slides, and seen automated sea creatures hovering through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nose passages of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a winding structure based on the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Inside, they can stroll around or relax on pelts, listening on headphones to tribal seniors sharing stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It could appear quirky, but the artwork honors a little-known biological feat: researchers have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the animal to thrive in extreme Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "produces a sense of inferiority that you as a person are not dominant over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, children's author, and environmental activist, who is from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that generates the chance to alter your outlook or evoke some humility," she states.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The winding installation is among various components in Sara's absorbing art project honoring the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They've endured persecution, cultural suppression, and suppression of their language by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the art also highlights the community's issues connected to the climate crisis, property rights, and external control.

Metaphor in Components

Along the long access slope, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot formation of reindeer hides ensnared by utility lines. It serves as a analogy for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this component of the installation, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, wherein dense layers of ice form as changing weather liquefy and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' key winter sustenance, fungus. The condition is a result of planetary warming, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and joined Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they carried trailers of animal nutrition on to the barren Arctic plains to distribute manually. The herd gathered round us, digging the frozen ground in vain for lichen-covered pieces. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive process is having a significant effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the other option is starvation. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from hunger, others submerging after falling into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the installation is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The installation also emphasizes the stark difference between the industrial understanding of electricity as a resource to be harnessed for gain and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an natural essence in animals, humans, and nature. The gallery's past as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be standard bearers for sustainable power, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, river barriers, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi argue their legal protections, ways of life, and culture are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to defend yourself when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara comments. "Mining practices has adopted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find alternative ways to maintain habits of use."

Personal Conflicts

The artist and her relatives have personally disagreed with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent regulations on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a set of finally failed lawsuits over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a extended set of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive screen of four hundred cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

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