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Visitors to the renowned gallery are used to surprising encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an man-made sun, descended down helter skelters, and seen AI-powered jellyfish drifting through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose cavities of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this huge space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a winding design inspired by the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on skins, listening on headphones to tribal seniors telling stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It might appear quirky, but the installation honors a obscure biological feat: experts have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it breathes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to endure in harsh Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "generates a sense of insignificance that you as a human being are not in control over nature." The artist is a ex- reporter, children's author, and land defender, who hails from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that fosters the possibility to change your outlook or trigger some modesty," she continues.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like structure is one of several elements in Sara's engaging art project honoring the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, integration policies, and eradication of their tongue by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the art also draws attention to the people's issues relating to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Components

At the lengthy entry ramp, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot formation of pelts trapped by electrical wires. It serves as a analogy for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this part of the artwork, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, in which thick sheets of ice develop as varying temperatures liquefy and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' key winter nourishment, lichen. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than in other regions.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a icy season and joined Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to dispense through labor. The reindeer surrounded round us, digging the icy ground in vain for mossy bits. This costly and labour-intensive procedure is having a drastic impact on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the other option is malnutrition. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are dying—some from starvation, others suffocating after sinking in lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the work is a tribute to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

The installation also highlights the sharp difference between the modern interpretation of power as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an inherent power in creatures, people, and the environment. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by regional governments. As they strive to be standard bearers for clean sources, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, river barriers, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their legal protections, ways of life, and culture are at risk. "It's hard being such a limited population to stand your ground when the arguments are grounded in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the rhetoric of ecology, but still it's just aiming to find better ways to maintain habits of expenditure."

Individual Conflicts

Sara and her kin have themselves conflicted with the national administration over its ever-stricter regulations on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara developed a four-year collection of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi including a massive drape of 400 cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Activism

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