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Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to unexpected displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an man-made sun, slid down helter skelters, and witnessed automated sea creatures drifting through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this huge space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a winding construction inspired by the expanded inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Inside, they can stroll around or chill out on skins, listening on earphones to community leaders imparting narratives and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It could seem playful, but the artwork pays tribute to a rarely recognized biological feat: researchers have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to endure in harsh Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "creates a feeling of smallness that you as a human being are not superior over nature." The artist is a ex- journalist, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that fosters the possibility to alter your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine design is among various features in Sara's absorbing commission honoring the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured discrimination, integration policies, and suppression of their dialect by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the art also spotlights the group's challenges connected to the global warming, land dispossession, and external control.

Meaning in Materials

On the lengthy entrance slope, there's a soaring, 26-meter structure of pelts entangled by power and light cables. It represents a symbol for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this section of the artwork, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which dense sheets of ice appear as varying temperatures thaw and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, lichen. This phenomenon is a result of planetary warming, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Arctic than elsewhere.

A few years back, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they hauled trailers of food pellets on to the barren tundra to provide manually. The reindeer surrounded round us, digging the slippery ground in vain for lichen-covered pieces. This resource-intensive and laborious process is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. However the choice is starvation. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—some from hunger, others drowning after sinking in streams through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the installation is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The installation also highlights the stark difference between the modern interpretation of power as a resource to be exploited for profit and existence and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an inherent power in animals, humans, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be exemplars for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, river barriers, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their legal protections, ways of life, and traditions are threatened. "It's hard being such a limited population to stand your ground when the justifications are based on global sustainability," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the language of sustainability, but yet it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to continue practices of use."

Family Challenges

Sara and her family have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter regulations on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his animals, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara produced a extended series of creations named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge screen of numerous reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it hangs in the entrance.

Art as Advocacy

Among the community, visual expression seems the sole sphere in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|