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Visitors to the renowned gallery are familiar to surprising encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an artificial sun, glided down amusement rides, and seen automated sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a maze-like structure based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can stroll around or relax on skins, tuning in on earphones to community leaders sharing narratives and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It may seem quirky, but the installation honors a little-known natural marvel: experts have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to endure in harsh Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "generates a feeling of smallness that you as a human being are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- journalist, writer for kids, and land defender, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that creates the chance to alter your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine installation is one of several features in Sara's engaging exhibition showcasing the heritage, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi total about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, integration policies, and repression of their language by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the work also draws attention to the people's issues associated with the climate crisis, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Components

At the lengthy entry ramp, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot structure of reindeer hides entangled by utility lines. It serves as a symbol for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this part of the installation, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, in which dense sheets of ice form as changing weather thaw and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' main winter sustenance, lichen. This phenomenon is a result of global heating, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than in other regions.

A few years back, I visited Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and went with Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the barren frozen landscape to distribute by hand. The herd gathered round us, scratching the slippery ground in vain for vegetative morsels. This resource-intensive and demanding process is having a significant effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others submerging after sinking in streams through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

This artwork also underscores the stark divergence between the western interpretation of power as a resource to be exploited for profit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an inherent essence in creatures, individuals, and the environment. Tate Modern's history as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be exemplars for sustainable power, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, water power facilities, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi assert their human rights, ways of life, and way of life are endangered. "It's challenging being such a limited population to protect your rights when the arguments are rooted in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Mining practices has adopted the rhetoric of sustainability, but yet it's just striving to find more suitable ways to continue habits of expenditure."

Family Conflicts

Sara and her kin have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter regulations on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his animals, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara produced a extended collection of creations called Pile O'Sápmi including a huge drape of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the the event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Awareness

For many Sámi, visual expression appears the sole sphere in which they can be understood by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|