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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, slid down helter skelters, and observed robotic jellyfish hovering through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nose chambers of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this cavernous space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a labyrinthine structure modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal airways. Upon entering, they can wander around or unwind on pelts, listening on headphones to community leaders sharing narratives and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It could sound playful, but the artwork celebrates a rarely recognized biological feat: scientists have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it takes in by 80°C, enabling the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "creates a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- journalist, young adult author, and land defender, who hails from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that fosters the possibility to alter your perspective or evoke some modesty," she continues.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine design is one of several features in Sara's engaging commission celebrating the traditions, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, integration policies, and eradication of their tongue by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the installation also highlights the people's challenges connected to the global warming, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Meaning in Elements

Along the long entrance slope, there's a looming, 26-meter sculpture of pelts entangled by utility lines. It represents a symbol for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this section of the installation, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, whereby dense coatings of ice develop as fluctuating conditions liquefy and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary cold-season food, fungus. This phenomenon is a outcome of global heating, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Far North than globally.

Previously, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they hauled trailers of food pellets on to the exposed tundra to provide by hand. These animals gathered round us, scratching the frozen ground in futility for lichen-covered bits. This costly and labour-intensive process is having a significant impact on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are dying—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after falling into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the art is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The sculpture also highlights the clear contrast between the industrial interpretation of electricity as a commodity to be harnessed for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an innate essence in creatures, humans, and nature. Tate Modern's history as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be leaders for renewable energy, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their human rights, ways of life, and traditions are at risk. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the arguments are rooted in saving the world," Sara comments. "Extractivism has co-opted the language of sustainability, but yet it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to maintain patterns of use."

Personal Struggles

The artist and her relatives have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent policies on herding. Previously, Sara's brother initiated a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his livestock, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara created a multi-year series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge screen of 400 cranial remains, which was exhibited at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work seems the exclusive domain in which they can be listened to by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|