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Visitors to Tate Modern are used to unusual encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an simulated sun, slid down helter skelters, and witnessed robotic sea creatures hovering through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose chambers of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a maze-like structure inspired by the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can wander around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to tribal seniors telling narratives and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It might seem quirky, but the exhibit celebrates a little-known biological feat: scientists have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to endure in extreme Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "creates a feeling of insignificance that you as a human being are not in control over nature." The artist is a former journalist, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who hails from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that generates the potential to change your perspective or trigger some humility," she states.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The winding structure is one of several features in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the culture, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They have endured oppression, integration policies, and suppression of their language by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the work also draws attention to the people's issues connected to the global warming, property rights, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Components

At the long entrance incline, there's a looming, 26-meter structure of pelts ensnared by electrical wires. It can be read as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this part of the installation, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, whereby thick sheets of ice develop as varying temperatures liquefy and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' key winter sustenance, lichen. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than in other regions.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they hauled containers of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured tundra to dispense manually. The reindeer crowded round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain for vegetative pieces. This expensive and demanding method is having a severe effect on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. However the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after falling into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

This artwork also highlights the sharp contrast between the western view of electricity as a resource to be utilized for gain and survival and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an innate essence in animals, people, and nature. The gallery's past as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be leaders for sustainable power, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the construction of windfarms, water power facilities, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and culture are endangered. "It's challenging being such a limited population to defend yourself when the justifications are based on global sustainability," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the language of ecology, but still it's just attempting to find alternative ways to continue habits of expenditure."

Individual Conflicts

She and her relatives have themselves conflicted with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter regulations on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's sibling embarked on a sequence of finally failed court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara developed a multi-year series of creations called Pile O'Sápmi including a massive curtain of numerous animal bones, which was exhibited at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it resides in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

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