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Guests to Tate Modern are used to surprising encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an artificial sun, slid down helter skelters, and seen robotic sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this huge space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a winding structure based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can stroll around or chill out on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors imparting narratives and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It could seem quirky, but the installation celebrates a little-known natural marvel: researchers have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it breathes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to endure in harsh Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "produces a sense of insignificance that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who is from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Possibly that creates the possibility to alter your outlook or spark some modesty," she continues.

An Homage to Sámi Culture

The maze-like structure is one of several components in Sara's engaging exhibition showcasing the heritage, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They have endured persecution, integration policies, and repression of their dialect by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the art also spotlights the group's challenges connected to the environmental emergency, property rights, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Components

At the long entry incline, there's a towering, 26-metre structure of pelts entangled by power and light cables. It serves as a metaphor for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this section of the exhibit, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, whereby thick sheets of ice develop as changing weather thaw and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' key cold-season food, fungus. This phenomenon is a result of planetary warming, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than elsewhere.

Previously, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they carried carts of animal nutrition on to the barren tundra to distribute manually. The herd surrounded round us, digging the frozen ground in vain for vegetative pieces. This resource-intensive and demanding process is having a significant impact on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the choice is death. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from lack of food, others submerging after falling into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the art is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The sculpture also emphasizes the stark difference between the industrial view of power as a resource to be utilized for profit and existence and the Sámi worldview of life force as an inherent essence in animals, humans, and the environment. Tate Modern's past as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi assert their human rights, livelihoods, and way of life are endangered. "It's hard being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the justifications are grounded in global sustainability," Sara observes. "Extractivism has adopted the language of environmentalism, but still it's just striving to find alternative ways to continue practices of use."

Family Challenges

She and her relatives have themselves conflicted with the national administration over its ever-stricter policies on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother embarked on a set of unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his herd, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a extended collection of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge drape of 400 animal bones, which was shown at the the event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entryway.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, visual expression appears the sole realm in which they can be heard by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|