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Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nose cavities of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this immense space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a maze-like structure inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Once inside, they can wander around or unwind on skins, listening on earphones to community leaders telling stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It may sound playful, but the exhibit celebrates a little-known natural marvel: scientists have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the creature to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "creates a sense of smallness that you as a person are not in control over nature." She is a former reporter, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who hails from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the possibility to shift your outlook or trigger some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The maze-like design is part of a components in Sara's engaging commission showcasing the traditions, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have endured persecution, forced assimilation, and suppression of their language by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the installation also highlights the community's issues relating to the climate crisis, property rights, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Materials

At the long access incline, there's a soaring, 26-metre sculpture of reindeer hides ensnared by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this component of the exhibit, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, wherein solid coatings of ice appear as fluctuating conditions thaw and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' main winter nourishment, moss. This phenomenon is a outcome of global heating, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Polar region than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they hauled containers of animal nutrition on to the exposed Arctic plains to distribute by hand. These animals surrounded round us, scratching the frozen ground in futility for vegetative morsels. This expensive and laborious procedure is having a drastic influence on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are succumbing—some from starvation, others drowning after sinking in streams through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the work is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The installation also underscores the sharp difference between the industrial view of energy as a resource to be harnessed for profit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an innate power in creatures, people, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be leaders for clean sources, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi contend their human rights, livelihoods, and traditions are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to protect your rights when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just striving to find alternative ways to maintain practices of use."

Personal Struggles

Sara and her family have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter rules on herding. In 2016, Sara's brother embarked on a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his herd, supposedly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara developed a four-year set of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge drape of four hundred animal bones, which was shown at the the event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entrance.

Art as Advocacy

For many Sámi, art is the only domain in which they can be listened to by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|