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Visitors to Tate Modern are familiar to unusual experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've basked under an artificial sun, glided down amusement rides, and seen AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a maze-like construction inspired by the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose airways. Inside, they can meander around or chill out on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to community leaders sharing narratives and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It may seem quirky, but the installation pays tribute to a rarely recognized biological feat: scientists have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it takes in by 80°C, enabling the creature to survive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "creates a feeling of inferiority that you as a human being are not in control over nature." The artist is a ex- reporter, children's author, and environmental activist, who hails from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that creates the possibility to shift your perspective or spark some humility," she continues.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine installation is one of several elements in Sara's absorbing exhibition showcasing the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They have faced persecution, integration policies, and suppression of their dialect by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the installation also spotlights the people's challenges connected to the climate crisis, property rights, and external control.

Metaphor in Elements

Along the extended entry ramp, there's a looming, 26-meter sculpture of reindeer hides entangled by utility lines. It serves as a metaphor for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this component of the exhibit, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, in which thick sheets of ice develop as varying conditions liquefy and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary winter nourishment, moss. This phenomenon is a outcome of climate change, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they hauled carts of food pellets on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to dispense manually. The reindeer surrounded round us, digging the slippery ground in futility for vegetative pieces. This costly and labour-intensive process is having a severe effect on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. Yet the choice is death. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are dying—a number from starvation, others drowning after sinking in streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the installation is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The sculpture also emphasizes the stark contrast between the modern interpretation of energy as a commodity to be exploited for gain and existence and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an inherent power in animals, individuals, and nature. The gallery's legacy as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, water power facilities, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their human rights, incomes, and traditions are threatened. "It's hard being such a small minority to defend yourself when the arguments are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Extractivism has adopted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to continue practices of consumption."

Individual Conflicts

She and her family have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent rules on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his animals, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a extended set of creations called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal drape of 400 cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, art seems the sole sphere in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|