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Attendees to Tate Modern are familiar to unusual displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've basked under an simulated sun, glided down helter skelters, and witnessed automated jellyfish hovering through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nose passages of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a winding construction inspired by the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on skins, tuning in on earphones to community leaders sharing stories and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It may seem whimsical, but the installation celebrates a rarely recognized scientific wonder: scientists have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to survive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "produces a feeling of inferiority that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." She is a ex- writer, young adult author, and environmental activist, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that creates the potential to change your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she states.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The maze-like structure is among various features in Sara's absorbing exhibition celebrating the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, forced assimilation, and eradication of their tongue by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the art also highlights the group's issues associated with the global warming, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Meaning in Components

On the lengthy entry slope, there's a soaring, 26-meter sculpture of pelts entangled by power and light cables. It represents a symbol for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this part of the installation, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, in which dense coatings of ice develop as varying conditions melt and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary winter food, moss. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Far North than in other regions.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in freezing temperatures as they transported containers of food pellets on to the barren tundra to distribute by hand. The reindeer crowded round us, digging the icy ground in vain for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and labour-intensive method is having a drastic effect on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. But the other option is starvation. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after plunging into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The installation also highlights the stark difference between the western view of electricity as a asset to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of life force as an innate power in creatures, people, and land. This venue's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their legal protections, livelihoods, and way of life are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the justifications are based on saving the world," Sara notes. "Mining practices has co-opted the language of environmentalism, but yet it's just striving to find better ways to persist in habits of expenditure."

Individual Challenges

She and her family have personally clashed with the national administration over its increasingly stringent regulations on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his animals, apparently to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara created a four-year series of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal curtain of 400 cranial remains, which was exhibited at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, art is the only realm in which they can be heard by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|