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Visitors to Tate Modern are used to surprising experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an simulated sun, descended down spiral slides, and seen automated jellyfish floating through the air. But this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this cavernous space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a labyrinthine design inspired by the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, listening on headphones to Sámi elders telling tales and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It may sound playful, but the installation honors a obscure scientific wonder: researchers have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it breathes in by 80°C, enabling the animal to survive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "produces a sense of smallness that you as a person are not superior over nature." She is a ex- journalist, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who is from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that creates the possibility to shift your viewpoint or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The maze-like design is part of a features in Sara's engaging commission celebrating the heritage, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced discrimination, forced assimilation, and suppression of their language by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the work also spotlights the people's struggles associated with the global warming, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Elements

On the extended entrance incline, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot sculpture of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It represents a metaphor for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this part of the installation, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, whereby thick coatings of ice form as changing weather thaw and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' key winter food, moss. Goavvi is a consequence of planetary warming, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Far North than globally.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they hauled carts of food pellets on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to dispense through labor. The reindeer surrounded round us, pawing the slippery ground in futility for mossy pieces. This expensive and laborious procedure is having a severe influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. But the other option is death. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are succumbing—some from starvation, others drowning after falling into water bodies through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the work is a memorial to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The installation also highlights the clear contrast between the industrial view of electricity as a commodity to be exploited for profit and survival and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an natural life force in animals, humans, and land. The gallery's legacy as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be standard bearers for sustainable power, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, water power facilities, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and culture are threatened. "It's challenging being such a small minority to stand your ground when the arguments are rooted in saving the world," Sara notes. "Mining practices has appropriated the language of ecology, but still it's just striving to find alternative ways to continue patterns of expenditure."

Personal Conflicts

The artist and her kin have themselves disagreed with the state authorities over its tightening rules on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of finally failed legal cases over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a extended set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge curtain of 400 animal bones, which was shown at the the event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work is the sole domain in which they can be listened to by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|