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Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, glided down helter skelters, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this huge space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a maze-like design based on the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or relax on reindeer hides, listening on earphones to Sámi elders sharing narratives and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It might sound quirky, but the artwork celebrates a obscure scientific wonder: scientists have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "produces a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." She is a former reporter, young adult author, and environmental activist, who comes from a herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that generates the chance to alter your perspective or evoke some modesty," she adds.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The maze-like design is one of several components in Sara's engaging commission showcasing the heritage, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured persecution, forced assimilation, and eradication of their tongue by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the work also spotlights the people's issues connected to the environmental emergency, property rights, and colonialism.

Meaning in Materials

On the long entry incline, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot structure of reindeer hides trapped by power and light cables. It represents a symbol for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this part of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, in which solid coatings of ice form as fluctuating conditions melt and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' main cold-season sustenance, moss. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than elsewhere.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and went with Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they transported containers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured tundra to distribute by hand. The herd gathered round us, digging the icy ground in futility for mossy bits. This costly and demanding procedure is having a severe impact on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. Yet the alternative is starvation. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are succumbing—some from lack of food, others suffocating after sinking in lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the work is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

This artwork also highlights the sharp contrast between the industrial interpretation of power as a asset to be utilized for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an innate life force in animals, people, and land. The gallery's history as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be leaders for sustainable power, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their legal protections, incomes, and way of life are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the reasons are rooted in environmental protection," Sara comments. "Extractivism has adopted the language of ecology, but still it's just aiming to find better ways to maintain habits of consumption."

Individual Challenges

She and her family have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening rules on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a series of finally failed legal cases over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a multi-year series of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal curtain of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the the event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

Among the community, creative work seems 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|