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Guests to Tate Modern are used to unusual displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, descended down spiral slides, and observed robotic sea creatures hovering through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nasal cavities of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this huge space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a winding design based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can stroll around or relax on pelts, listening on headphones to tribal seniors sharing tales and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It could seem playful, but the installation celebrates a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it breathes in by 80°C, enabling the creature to endure in inhospitable Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "generates a feeling of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and land defender, who is from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that fosters the chance to shift your perspective or spark some humbleness," she states.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The winding installation is one of several components in Sara's immersive exhibition showcasing the heritage, knowledge, and beliefs 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, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They have experienced persecution, forced assimilation, and suppression of their tongue by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the installation also draws attention to the community's challenges relating to the global warming, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Materials

At the lengthy entrance ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter structure of reindeer hides entangled by power and light cables. It serves as a symbol for the societal frameworks limiting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this part of the artwork, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which thick layers of ice appear as fluctuating conditions melt and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter nourishment, moss. The condition is a result of climate change, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Far North than in other regions.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and joined Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they transported containers of food pellets on to the barren tundra to distribute through labor. The herd crowded round us, pawing the icy ground in vain for mossy morsels. This costly and labour-intensive process is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. However the other option is death. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others drowning after plunging into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the installation is a memorial to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

The installation also emphasizes the sharp contrast between the western understanding of energy as a resource to be utilized for profit and survival and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an inherent power in animals, humans, and land. The gallery's past as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by regional governments. In their efforts to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their human rights, incomes, and way of life are threatened. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the arguments are rooted in saving the world," Sara comments. "Extractivism has appropriated the language of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find better ways to continue practices of use."

Individual Struggles

The artist and her kin have personally disagreed with the state authorities over its tightening rules on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's brother initiated a set of unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his livestock, apparently to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a four-year set of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive drape of four hundred cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it resides in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For many Sámi, art is the only domain in which they can be heard by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|