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Visitors to Tate Modern are accustomed to surprising encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an artificial sun, glided down amusement rides, and seen robotic jellyfish hovering through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this cavernous space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a winding design modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Upon entering, they can stroll around or relax on reindeer hides, listening on earphones to Sámi elders sharing narratives and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It may sound quirky, but the installation honors a obscure scientific wonder: scientists have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the animal to survive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "produces a sense of inferiority that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a former reporter, children's author, and rights advocate, who comes from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Possibly that generates the chance to change your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she adds.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like installation is part of a elements in Sara's immersive commission showcasing the culture, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, forced assimilation, and repression of their dialect by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also draws attention to the community's issues associated with the global warming, property rights, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Materials

Along the long entry ramp, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot sculpture of pelts ensnared by electrical wires. It can be read as a analogy for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this section of the artwork, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, whereby thick layers of ice develop as varying weather thaw and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' main cold-season sustenance, lichen. Goavvi is a outcome of planetary warming, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than in other regions.

A few years back, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they transported trailers of animal nutrition on to the exposed Arctic plains to distribute manually. The reindeer gathered round us, digging the slippery ground in vain attempts for vegetative bits. This expensive and labour-intensive method is having a significant impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the other option is starvation. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from starvation, others drowning after falling into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the work is a tribute to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The installation also highlights the sharp difference between the industrial interpretation of power as a resource to be utilized for profit and existence and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an natural essence in animals, people, and the environment. This venue's legacy as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi argue their human rights, ways of life, and way of life are at risk. "It's challenging being such a limited population to defend yourself when the arguments are rooted in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Extractivism has appropriated the rhetoric of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find alternative ways to continue habits of consumption."

Family Struggles

The artist and her family have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter rules on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother initiated a set of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara produced a multi-year collection of creations named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal drape of 400 animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Awareness

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