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Attendees to Tate Modern are used to surprising displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, descended down amusement rides, and observed robotic sea creatures drifting through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nose passages of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this huge space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a maze-like construction modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose airways. Upon entering, they can meander around or relax on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders telling tales and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It might seem whimsical, but the artwork celebrates a little-known biological feat: scientists have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the creature to survive in harsh Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "creates a sense of inferiority that you as a person are not dominant over nature." She is a ex- journalist, writer for kids, and land defender, who hails from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that fosters the potential to change your outlook or trigger some modesty," she states.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The maze-like installation is among various features in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, integration policies, and repression of their language by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the art also highlights the people's challenges relating to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and external control.

Meaning in Elements

On the long access ramp, there's a towering, 26-metre structure of reindeer hides ensnared by electrical wires. It can be read as a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this section of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein solid layers of ice appear as fluctuating temperatures melt and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary cold-season sustenance, lichen. The condition is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than globally.

Previously, I visited Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in freezing temperatures as they transported containers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to provide manually. The herd surrounded round us, pawing the icy ground in futility for mossy morsels. This resource-intensive and laborious procedure is having a severe effect on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. But the other option is death. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are dying—some from starvation, others submerging after sinking in water bodies through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the art is a monument to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

This artwork also underscores the sharp divergence between the western interpretation of energy as a asset to be utilized for profit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of energy as an innate power in animals, people, and nature. Tate Modern's history as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their legal protections, livelihoods, and culture are at risk. "It's hard being such a small minority to protect your rights when the arguments are based on saving the world," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the rhetoric of sustainability, but still it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to continue habits of consumption."

Individual Struggles

Sara and her kin have personally clashed with the national administration over its tightening regulations on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a sequence of unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his animals, apparently to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a multi-year set of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal screen of numerous animal bones, which was shown at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it resides in the entrance.

Art as Advocacy

Among the community, art seems the only sphere in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|