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Guests to Tate Modern are used to unexpected displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an man-made sun, glided down helter skelters, and witnessed robotic sea creatures drifting through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose chambers of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this huge space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a labyrinthine construction based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Once inside, they can wander around or chill out on pelts, listening on headphones to community leaders telling narratives and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It could seem whimsical, but the exhibit honors a little-known natural marvel: scientists have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it breathes in by 80°C, allowing the animal to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "creates a sense of inferiority that you as a human being are not in control over nature." The artist is a former writer, young adult author, and rights advocate, who is from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the chance to change your viewpoint or spark some modesty," she continues.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like design is part of a elements in Sara's engaging art project honoring the culture, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced persecution, forced assimilation, and repression of their language by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the work also spotlights the group's issues connected to the global warming, loss of territory, and external control.

Symbolism in Components

Along the lengthy entrance ramp, there's a looming, 26-meter sculpture of reindeer hides entangled by power and light cables. It can be read as a symbol for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this section of the installation, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid layers of ice develop as varying conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter food, moss. This phenomenon is a consequence of planetary warming, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they transported trailers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to distribute by hand. The reindeer surrounded round us, digging the icy ground in vain attempts for vegetative morsels. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive process is having a drastic effect on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. But the choice is starvation. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are dying—a number from starvation, others drowning after falling into water bodies through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the installation is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The installation also highlights the stark difference between the western interpretation of power as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an inherent power in creatures, individuals, and the environment. Tate Modern's history as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be leaders for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and traditions are threatened. "It's hard being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the reasons are grounded in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the discourse of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find better ways to continue habits of consumption."

Individual Struggles

She and her kin have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a set of finally failed lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a multi-year collection of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive screen of 400 animal bones, which was exhibited at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it hangs in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Awareness

Among the community, art is the exclusive sphere in which they can be heard by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|