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Visitors to Tate Modern are accustomed to surprising encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They've basked under an man-made sun, glided down amusement rides, and seen AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a maze-like structure modeled after the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal airways. Inside, they can meander around or chill out on skins, tuning in on earphones to community leaders telling tales and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It could sound quirky, but the exhibit celebrates a obscure biological feat: experts have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it inhales by eighty degrees, helping the creature to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "generates a feeling of smallness that you as a individual are not in control over nature." She is a ex- writer, young adult author, and environmental activist, who is from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that creates the chance to change your viewpoint or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The winding design is part of a elements in Sara's absorbing exhibition showcasing the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They have experienced persecution, cultural suppression, and suppression of their tongue by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the installation also highlights the group's challenges connected to the environmental emergency, property rights, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Materials

Along the lengthy entrance incline, there's a looming, 26-metre formation of pelts entangled by utility lines. It serves as a analogy for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this component of the installation, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, wherein solid coatings of ice develop as fluctuating conditions liquefy and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' main cold-season food, moss. Goavvi is a consequence of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and went with Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they carried trailers of animal nutrition on to the barren frozen landscape to dispense by hand. These animals gathered round us, pawing the icy ground in vain attempts for mossy morsels. This expensive and laborious process is having a severe impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the alternative is starvation. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from lack of food, others submerging after falling into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the work is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

The sculpture also emphasizes the stark divergence between the industrial interpretation of electricity as a resource to be harnessed for gain and existence and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an inherent essence in animals, people, and land. The gallery's history as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Nordic nations 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 human rights, ways of life, and way of life are at risk. "It's challenging being such a limited population to defend yourself when the arguments are rooted in environmental protection," Sara notes. "Extractivism has adopted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just striving to find more suitable ways to persist in habits of consumption."

Family Challenges

Sara and her family have themselves clashed with the national administration over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a sequence of finally failed court actions over the required reduction of his herd, supposedly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara created a multi-year set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal curtain of 400 reindeer skulls, which was shown at the the show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression appears the exclusive realm in which they can be understood by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|