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Visitors to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, descended down amusement rides, and observed automated sea creatures drifting through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nose chambers of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this cavernous space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a maze-like structure modeled after the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or relax on pelts, tuning in on earphones to community leaders sharing narratives and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It might seem whimsical, but the artwork honors a obscure biological feat: researchers have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, helping the animal to thrive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a perception of smallness that you as a person are not superior over nature." She is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that creates the potential to shift your perspective or spark some modesty," she adds.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The maze-like design is among various features in Sara's absorbing commission honoring the culture, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced discrimination, cultural suppression, and eradication of their language by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the installation also draws attention to the community's struggles relating to the climate crisis, property rights, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Materials

Along the long entrance ramp, there's a soaring, 26-metre formation of skins ensnared by electrical wires. It represents a metaphor for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this section of the artwork, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which dense sheets of ice form as changing weather thaw and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season food, moss. The condition is a outcome of climate change, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than elsewhere.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they carried trailers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to distribute manually. The herd gathered round us, digging the slippery ground in futility for lichen-covered bits. This resource-intensive and laborious procedure is having a drastic effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the alternative is starvation. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from starvation, others drowning after plunging into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the installation is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The sculpture also highlights the clear contrast between the industrial understanding of energy as a commodity to be utilized for gain and existence and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an innate life force in creatures, humans, and nature. Tate Modern's past as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by regional governments. While attempting to be exemplars for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, water power facilities, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their human rights, ways of life, and way of life are endangered. "It's hard being such a small minority to defend yourself when the reasons are grounded in environmental protection," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the discourse of sustainability, but yet it's just attempting to find better ways to maintain practices of expenditure."

Family Struggles

The artist and her relatives have themselves disagreed with the national administration over its ever-stricter rules on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's sibling undertook a sequence of finally failed court actions over the forced culling of his herd, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara developed a multi-year set of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge curtain of numerous cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

For many Sámi, creative work is the only sphere in which they can be heard by outsiders. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|