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Visitors to Tate Modern are familiar to unexpected experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an man-made sun, glided down amusement rides, and witnessed AI-powered jellyfish hovering through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this cavernous space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a labyrinthine construction inspired by the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Once inside, they can meander around or relax on reindeer hides, listening on earphones to community leaders telling tales and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It might seem whimsical, but the exhibit pays tribute to a rarely recognized scientific wonder: experts have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it inhales by 80°C, enabling the creature to endure in inhospitable Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "creates a perception of insignificance that you as a person are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- journalist, children's author, and land defender, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that creates the chance to shift your perspective or evoke some modesty," she states.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The winding design is part of a features in Sara's immersive commission celebrating the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, forced assimilation, and repression of their tongue by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the installation also highlights the group's struggles relating to the environmental emergency, property rights, and external control.

Symbolism in Materials

At the long entry slope, there's a towering, 26-metre structure of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this component of the artwork, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, wherein thick sheets of ice form as fluctuating weather melt and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' key winter sustenance, fungus. Goavvi is a result of climate change, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than globally.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and joined Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they transported trailers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to dispense manually. The herd gathered round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain attempts for vegetative pieces. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a severe influence on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the other option is malnutrition. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are dying—some from starvation, others suffocating after falling into water bodies through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the art is a memorial to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

This artwork also underscores the stark divergence between the modern interpretation of energy as a commodity to be harnessed for profit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an natural essence in creatures, people, and land. Tate Modern's past as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their legal protections, ways of life, and traditions are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Extractivism has adopted the language of sustainability, but yet it's just striving to find alternative ways to persist in habits of consumption."

Family Conflicts

Sara and her kin have themselves disagreed with the national administration over its ever-stricter policies on herding. Previously, Sara's sibling initiated a series of unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his animals, supposedly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara created a extended series of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal curtain of 400 cranial remains, which was exhibited at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

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