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Visitors to Tate Modern are familiar to surprising displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an simulated sun, slid down helter skelters, and witnessed automated sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this cavernous space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a winding design inspired by the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, listening on headphones to Sámi elders sharing stories and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It could seem playful, but the installation honors a rarely recognized scientific wonder: scientists have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the animal to endure in harsh Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "produces a perception of insignificance that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." The artist is a former reporter, children's author, and land defender, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that creates the possibility to shift your perspective or evoke some modesty," she continues.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The winding installation is among various components in Sara's engaging art project celebrating the culture, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They've endured persecution, integration policies, and suppression of their language by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the installation also draws attention to the community's struggles relating to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and external control.

Symbolism in Elements

Along the long entry ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter structure of reindeer hides ensnared by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this part of the artwork, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, whereby solid coatings of ice develop as fluctuating weather thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter sustenance, moss. Goavvi is a result of planetary warming, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than globally.

Previously, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured tundra to dispense by hand. The reindeer crowded round us, digging the frozen ground in futility for vegetative bits. This expensive and demanding method is having a significant impact on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. Yet the alternative is starvation. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are dying—some from lack of food, others submerging after sinking in streams through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the installation is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The installation also emphasizes the clear divergence between the modern understanding of electricity as a resource to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of energy as an natural life force in animals, humans, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be standard bearers for clean sources, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their legal protections, incomes, and traditions are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to stand your ground when the justifications are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Mining practices has adopted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find better ways to continue patterns of use."

Personal Challenges

She and her relatives have themselves conflicted with the national administration over its ever-stricter policies on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother embarked on a series of finally failed court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a four-year set of creations named Pile O'Sápmi including a massive curtain of 400 animal bones, which was shown at the the show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it resides in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For many Sámi, creative work appears the sole sphere in which they can be heard by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|