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Visitors to Tate Modern are used to unexpected displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, descended down helter skelters, and observed automated sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this huge space—developed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a labyrinthine design modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Once inside, they can stroll around or unwind on skins, tuning in on headphones to Sámi elders sharing tales and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It might sound quirky, but the installation pays tribute to a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, helping the animal to survive in extreme Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "produces a perception of smallness that you as a person are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, young adult author, and land defender, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that generates the possibility to shift your viewpoint or spark some humility," she adds.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The winding structure is part of a features in Sara's engaging exhibition celebrating the heritage, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They've endured discrimination, integration policies, and eradication of their tongue by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the work also spotlights the group's challenges relating to the global warming, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Elements

On the long entry incline, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot sculpture of pelts ensnared by electrical wires. It represents a analogy for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this part of the artwork, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby dense coatings of ice appear as fluctuating weather thaw and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season food, lichen. This phenomenon is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than in other regions.

A few years back, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they carried carts of animal nutrition on to the barren frozen landscape to provide through labor. The reindeer surrounded round us, pawing the frozen ground in futility for mossy pieces. This costly and labour-intensive method is having a drastic influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. But the choice is death. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after sinking in streams through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the installation is a memorial to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The sculpture also emphasizes the stark divergence between the industrial understanding of electricity as a asset to be harnessed for gain and survival and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an natural essence in creatures, humans, and land. This venue's past as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be standard bearers for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi contend their legal protections, ways of life, and traditions are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Extractivism has adopted the rhetoric of sustainability, but still it's just attempting to find better ways to maintain habits of use."

Individual Struggles

The artist and her relatives have themselves conflicted with the national administration over its tightening rules on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's sibling undertook a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his herd, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a multi-year set of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi including a massive curtain of four hundred cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Awareness

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