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Guests to Tate Modern are familiar to unusual encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an simulated sun, glided down spiral slides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nasal passages of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this immense space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a winding construction based on the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Inside, they can wander around or relax on pelts, listening on headphones to tribal seniors sharing stories and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It may seem playful, but the installation honors a obscure biological feat: experts have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it breathes in by eighty degrees, enabling the animal to thrive in harsh Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "generates a sense of smallness that you as a person are not dominant over nature." She is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and land defender, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that generates the possibility to shift your outlook or spark some humbleness," she adds.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The winding design is among various elements in Sara's immersive exhibition showcasing the culture, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They have endured persecution, integration policies, and eradication of their dialect by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the work also highlights the community's issues connected to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Elements

At the long entry ramp, there's a looming, 26-meter structure of skins entangled by utility lines. It can be read as a symbol for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this component of the artwork, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby thick coatings of ice form as changing weather thaw and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter sustenance, lichen. Goavvi is a outcome of climate change, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than in other regions.

A few years back, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they carried trailers of food pellets on to the barren frozen landscape to provide through labor. The reindeer gathered round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain for mossy morsels. This costly and labour-intensive procedure is having a severe effect on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. But the other option is malnutrition. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from hunger, others suffocating after falling into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the installation is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

This artwork also emphasizes the stark contrast between the western view of electricity as a resource to be utilized for profit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of life force as an inherent essence in creatures, individuals, and nature. The gallery's past as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be leaders for clean sources, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, river barriers, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi argue their legal protections, incomes, and traditions are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to protect your rights when the justifications are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the language of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just striving to find better ways to maintain patterns of use."

Individual Conflicts

She and her family have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter regulations on herding. Previously, Sara's brother initiated a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a extended series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal screen of numerous animal bones, which was exhibited at the the event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it resides in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Awareness

Among the community, creative work is the sole realm in which they can be understood by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|