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Visitors to Tate Modern are used to unusual displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, descended down spiral slides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a winding structure inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can stroll around or relax on skins, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders imparting stories and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It may appear playful, but the installation honors a little-known natural marvel: experts have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it inhales by eighty degrees, allowing the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "creates a perception of inferiority that you as a individual are not in control over nature." The artist is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and land defender, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that generates the possibility to change your viewpoint or evoke some humility," she continues.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The winding installation is among various elements in Sara's engaging exhibition honoring the heritage, science, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, cultural suppression, and suppression of their language by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the installation also draws attention to the people's struggles connected to the global warming, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Elements

On the long entrance incline, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot sculpture of reindeer hides trapped by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this part of the installation, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, wherein solid sheets of ice appear as changing weather thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter nourishment, fungus. The condition is a outcome of global heating, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than globally.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they hauled trailers of animal nutrition on to the exposed tundra to provide manually. The reindeer crowded round us, digging the slippery ground in vain for lichen-covered morsels. This costly and labour-intensive procedure is having a significant influence on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the choice is death. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from starvation, others suffocating after sinking in lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the art is a monument to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The installation also emphasizes the clear difference between the western view of power as a commodity to be harnessed for gain and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of life force as an innate essence in animals, individuals, and land. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their human rights, ways of life, and traditions are at risk. "It's hard being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the reasons are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the language of sustainability, but yet it's just striving to find alternative ways to persist in practices of use."

Individual Conflicts

The artist and her family have themselves conflicted with the national administration over its ever-stricter policies on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a series of finally failed court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara produced a extended series of creations named Pile O'Sápmi including a massive drape of four hundred animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it resides in the entrance.

Art as Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work appears the only domain in which they can be heard by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|