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Attendees to Tate Modern are familiar to unexpected displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an simulated sun, slid down amusement rides, and witnessed robotic jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose passages of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this huge space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like structure inspired by the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Once inside, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, listening on headphones to community leaders sharing tales and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It might seem playful, but the artwork honors a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to survive in inhospitable Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "produces a sense of inferiority that you as a person are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who is from a herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that fosters the chance to shift your perspective or spark some modesty," she continues.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine structure is one of several features in Sara's absorbing commission showcasing the culture, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, integration policies, and suppression of their language by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also draws attention to the community's struggles relating to the global warming, land dispossession, and external control.

Symbolism in Components

On the extended entry ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter structure of reindeer hides entangled by utility lines. It can be read as a symbol for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this section of the installation, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, whereby thick coatings of ice form as changing conditions melt and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' main cold-season food, moss. The condition is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than globally.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they hauled carts of animal nutrition on to the exposed tundra to dispense manually. The reindeer crowded round us, digging the slippery ground in vain for mossy bits. This costly and labour-intensive method is having a severe effect on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. Yet the alternative is malnutrition. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are dying—some from starvation, others suffocating after falling into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the installation is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The sculpture also highlights the clear contrast between the modern understanding of energy as a resource to be harnessed for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an natural essence in creatures, humans, and the environment. The gallery's past as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be leaders for sustainable power, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, river barriers, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and traditions are endangered. "It's hard being such a limited population to stand your ground when the justifications are grounded in environmental protection," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the rhetoric of sustainability, but yet it's just aiming to find better ways to persist in practices of use."

Individual Struggles

The artist and her relatives have personally conflicted with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a set of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his herd, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara developed a four-year collection of creations named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal screen of numerous cranial remains, which was shown at the the event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work seems the only realm in which they can be understood by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|