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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unexpected encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They've basked under an artificial sun, slid down spiral slides, and seen automated jellyfish drifting through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a winding construction inspired by the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Once inside, they can wander around or unwind on skins, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors sharing stories and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It might sound whimsical, but the exhibit honors a obscure scientific wonder: researchers have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to survive in extreme Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "generates a feeling of inferiority that you as a person are not in control over nature." Sara is a former writer, children's author, and environmental activist, who comes from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that creates the potential to change your outlook or spark some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like structure is one of several elements in Sara's immersive commission showcasing the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, forced assimilation, and suppression of their tongue by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the art also highlights the group's struggles connected to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and external control.

Symbolism in Components

On the extended entrance incline, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot sculpture of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It represents a analogy for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this part of the artwork, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein solid coatings of ice form as fluctuating conditions liquefy and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter sustenance, moss. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Far North than in other regions.

Previously, I met with Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they hauled carts of food pellets on to the exposed tundra to distribute through labor. The reindeer surrounded round us, pawing the frozen ground in futility for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and labour-intensive process is having a drastic influence on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. But the alternative is death. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others submerging after sinking in streams through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the art is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

This artwork also highlights the sharp difference between the modern interpretation of power as a commodity to be exploited for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi worldview of energy as an innate essence in creatures, people, and nature. Tate Modern's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. As they strive to be leaders for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi assert their legal protections, livelihoods, and traditions are at risk. "It's hard being such a limited population to defend yourself when the arguments are based on global sustainability," Sara comments. "Mining practices has co-opted the discourse of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to maintain patterns of consumption."

Family Challenges

She and her relatives have themselves clashed with the national administration over its tightening policies on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's sibling initiated a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his livestock, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a extended collection of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi including a massive curtain of 400 cranial remains, which was displayed at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

Among the community, creative work is the only realm in which they can be heard by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|