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Guests to Tate Modern are used to unexpected displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've basked under an simulated sun, glided down amusement rides, and seen AI-powered sea creatures hovering through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nose passages of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a maze-like design inspired by the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can stroll around or relax on skins, listening on earphones to Sámi elders sharing tales and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It may appear whimsical, but the installation honors a obscure natural marvel: scientists have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by eighty degrees, allowing the creature to survive in harsh Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "produces a feeling of inferiority that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a ex- writer, young adult author, and environmental activist, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that creates the possibility to shift your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine installation is part of a features in Sara's immersive commission honoring the heritage, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have experienced discrimination, integration policies, and eradication of their dialect by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the work also highlights the community's struggles associated with the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Components

On the long entry slope, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot sculpture of reindeer hides entangled by power and light cables. It represents a metaphor for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this part of the installation, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which thick layers of ice develop as varying weather melt and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary winter food, fungus. This phenomenon is a consequence of planetary warming, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than globally.

Previously, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they hauled trailers of supplementary feed on to the exposed Arctic plains to distribute by hand. The reindeer gathered round us, scratching the frozen ground in futility for mossy bits. This expensive and laborious process is having a drastic influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the alternative is starvation. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after sinking in streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the art is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

This artwork also highlights the stark contrast between the western understanding of energy as a resource to be exploited for profit and existence and the Sámi outlook of life force as an inherent essence in creatures, humans, and the environment. This venue's history as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be exemplars for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their legal protections, livelihoods, and way of life are endangered. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the arguments are rooted in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Mining practices has co-opted the discourse of ecology, but still it's just attempting to find better ways to continue patterns of use."

Family Struggles

She and her family have themselves conflicted with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter policies on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's sibling undertook a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara produced a multi-year set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi including a massive drape of four hundred cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entryway.

Art as Advocacy

Among the community, art is the sole sphere in which they can be heard by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|