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Guests to Tate Modern are used to unexpected experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an simulated sun, glided down spiral slides, and observed robotic sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this cavernous space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a winding design inspired by the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can wander around or chill out on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders sharing stories and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It might appear whimsical, but the installation celebrates a rarely recognized biological feat: experts have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it breathes in by eighty degrees, allowing the creature to endure in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "generates a sense of smallness that you as a human being are not superior over nature." The artist is a former journalist, children's author, and rights advocate, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that generates the chance to shift your perspective or spark some humility," she states.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine design is among various elements in Sara's absorbing exhibition celebrating the culture, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total about 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've endured oppression, integration policies, and repression of their tongue by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the art also draws attention to the people's issues associated with the climate crisis, loss of territory, and external control.

Meaning in Materials

On the lengthy access ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter sculpture of pelts entangled by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this section of the artwork, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein dense layers of ice develop as varying weather melt and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' key winter food, lichen. Goavvi is a consequence of planetary warming, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than elsewhere.

A few years back, I met with Sara in a remote town during a icy season and went with Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they transported containers of food pellets on to the exposed tundra to distribute through labor. The herd gathered round us, pawing the icy ground in vain attempts for mossy pieces. This costly and demanding procedure is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. But the choice is death. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are dying—some from starvation, others drowning after falling into water bodies through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

This artwork also underscores the clear contrast between the modern interpretation of electricity as a commodity to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an innate life force in creatures, individuals, and land. Tate Modern's past as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their human rights, livelihoods, and culture are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to stand your ground when the justifications are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the rhetoric of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find alternative ways to persist in patterns of expenditure."

Family Challenges

Sara and her family have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its tightening rules on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother embarked on a series of finally failed lawsuits over the forced culling of his livestock, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara developed a multi-year set of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal screen of four hundred cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Activism

For many Sámi, art is the exclusive domain in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|