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Guests to Tate Modern are used to unusual encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an simulated sun, glided down spiral slides, and observed AI-powered jellyfish floating through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a winding construction based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Once inside, they can wander around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on earphones to Sámi elders imparting stories and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It may sound whimsical, but the exhibit honors a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it takes in by eighty degrees, helping the creature to survive in extreme Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "produces a perception of inferiority that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." She is a ex- journalist, children's author, and land defender, who comes from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that generates the chance to change your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she states.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The winding structure is part of a elements in Sara's immersive commission showcasing the traditions, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced discrimination, integration policies, and repression of their language by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the work also draws attention to the people's issues connected to the climate crisis, property rights, and external control.

Meaning in Elements

Along the extended entrance slope, there's a looming, 26-meter structure of skins trapped by power and light cables. It can be read as a metaphor for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this section of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby solid coatings of ice form as changing conditions liquefy and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season nourishment, lichen. This phenomenon is a consequence of planetary warming, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they transported trailers of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to dispense manually. These animals surrounded round us, pawing the icy ground in futility for mossy morsels. This expensive and laborious process is having a severe influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the choice is death. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are dying—some from hunger, others suffocating after falling into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the art is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The installation also underscores the stark contrast between the modern understanding of power as a asset to be utilized for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an inherent power in animals, individuals, and land. The gallery's past as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by regional governments. While attempting to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their legal protections, incomes, and traditions are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to defend yourself when the reasons are rooted in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Mining practices has adopted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to continue patterns of expenditure."

Family Struggles

Sara and her relatives have personally disagreed with the state authorities over its tightening policies on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's brother embarked on a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his livestock, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara created a multi-year series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive screen of 400 cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it resides in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

Among the community, visual expression seems the only realm in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|