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Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an man-made sun, slid down amusement rides, and witnessed automated sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a labyrinthine structure based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Once inside, they can wander around or relax on skins, tuning in on earphones to community leaders telling stories and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It might sound quirky, but the artwork celebrates a little-known natural marvel: experts have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it inhales by eighty degrees, helping the creature to survive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a perception of smallness that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a ex- reporter, children's author, and environmental activist, who hails from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Maybe that fosters the potential to change your outlook or trigger some humbleness," she states.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The winding structure is among various features in Sara's engaging art project honoring the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, integration policies, and repression of their language by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and founding narrative, the installation also highlights the community's issues relating to the global warming, property rights, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Components

On the extended entry ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter sculpture of reindeer hides ensnared by power and light cables. It represents a symbol for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this component of the installation, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid sheets of ice appear as varying conditions liquefy and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary winter food, moss. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than in other regions.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they hauled trailers of food pellets on to the exposed tundra to distribute by hand. The herd crowded round us, scratching the icy ground in vain attempts for vegetative morsels. This expensive and labour-intensive method is having a severe impact on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. But the other option is malnutrition. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others drowning after falling into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the work is a monument to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The installation also highlights the sharp divergence between the industrial interpretation of power as a resource to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an innate essence in animals, individuals, and the environment. The gallery's history as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their human rights, incomes, and traditions are endangered. "It's hard being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the rhetoric of sustainability, but still it's just aiming to find better ways to maintain patterns of expenditure."

Family Challenges

The artist and her relatives have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening rules on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's brother undertook a series of finally failed court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a multi-year set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge drape of numerous reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work is the only domain in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|