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Attendees to Tate Modern are used to unexpected experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an simulated sun, slid down spiral slides, and observed AI-powered sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nose cavities of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this huge space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a winding design inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can wander around or chill out on skins, tuning in on earphones to tribal seniors telling stories and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It may seem quirky, but the exhibit celebrates a rarely recognized biological feat: scientists have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it takes in by 80°C, allowing the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "produces a sense of insignificance that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." She is a former journalist, writer for kids, and land defender, who hails from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that creates the potential to shift your viewpoint or spark some modesty," she adds.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine design is part of a features in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the traditions, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They've experienced persecution, integration policies, and repression of their language by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the work also spotlights the community's challenges relating to the global warming, property rights, and colonialism.

Meaning in Materials

At the lengthy entrance slope, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot formation of skins ensnared by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this component of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which dense sheets of ice develop as changing conditions liquefy and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season food, moss. This phenomenon is a outcome of planetary warming, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than elsewhere.

Previously, I met with Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they hauled carts of food pellets on to the barren frozen landscape to dispense by hand. The reindeer gathered round us, digging the frozen ground in vain for mossy bits. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive method is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. However the other option is malnutrition. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are dying—some from hunger, others suffocating after plunging into water bodies through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the work is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The installation also highlights the clear divergence between the modern interpretation of energy as a asset to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an innate life force in animals, humans, and land. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi argue their legal protections, livelihoods, and traditions are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to defend yourself when the reasons are rooted in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the discourse of ecology, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find alternative ways to continue patterns of expenditure."

Individual Struggles

Sara and her family have personally disagreed with the national administration over its ever-stricter regulations on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's brother undertook a sequence of unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his livestock, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara produced a multi-year collection of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal screen of 400 reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it hangs in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Awareness

For many Sámi, art appears the sole realm in which they can be understood by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|