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Visitors to Tate Modern are familiar to unexpected encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an artificial sun, slid down amusement rides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this cavernous space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a maze-like design modeled after the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can stroll around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors sharing narratives and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It might sound whimsical, but the artwork pays tribute to a rarely recognized biological feat: researchers have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to endure in harsh Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "generates a perception of inferiority that you as a individual are not superior over nature." The artist is a former reporter, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who is from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that fosters the potential to alter your perspective or spark some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The winding installation is one of several components in Sara's absorbing commission showcasing the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced oppression, forced assimilation, and repression of their tongue by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the installation also highlights the group's struggles relating to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Materials

At the extended entry slope, there's a towering, 26-meter sculpture of reindeer hides ensnared by utility lines. It represents a analogy for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the artwork, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby thick layers of ice form as varying temperatures thaw and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' key winter nourishment, moss. This phenomenon is a result of climate change, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Far North than in other regions.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they hauled trailers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured tundra to distribute by hand. These animals crowded round us, digging the icy ground in vain for vegetative bits. This expensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a drastic impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the alternative is death. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from lack of food, others drowning after sinking in water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the art is a monument to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The sculpture also underscores the sharp contrast between the modern interpretation of electricity as a asset to be utilized for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an inherent essence in creatures, people, and the environment. Tate Modern's past as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be exemplars for sustainable power, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and traditions are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to stand your ground when the justifications are grounded in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Extractivism has appropriated the rhetoric of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just striving to find alternative ways to continue habits of use."

Family Conflicts

The artist and her family have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent policies on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother initiated a set of finally failed lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara developed a multi-year series of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge screen of 400 cranial remains, which was displayed at the the show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it hangs in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

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