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Attendees to Tate Modern are familiar to unexpected displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an simulated sun, slid down spiral slides, and observed robotic jellyfish hovering through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal passages of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a winding design modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can meander around or chill out on skins, listening on headphones to Sámi elders sharing stories and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It could sound playful, but the artwork honors a rarely recognized natural marvel: researchers have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the creature to endure in extreme Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "produces a perception of smallness that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a former journalist, children's author, and environmental activist, who hails from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Possibly that creates the possibility to shift your perspective or trigger some humility," she continues.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The maze-like structure is among various elements in Sara's immersive commission celebrating the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, integration policies, and suppression of their dialect by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the work also draws attention to the people's challenges associated with the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Meaning in Materials

At the lengthy entry ramp, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot sculpture of reindeer hides trapped by utility lines. It can be read as a analogy for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this section of the artwork, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, wherein thick layers of ice appear as fluctuating weather liquefy and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' main cold-season nourishment, moss. This phenomenon is a consequence of climate change, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Arctic than globally.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to provide by hand. The herd gathered round us, digging the icy ground in vain attempts for vegetative pieces. This costly and demanding process is having a drastic influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. Yet the alternative is starvation. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are succumbing—some from starvation, others submerging after falling into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the art is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The sculpture also emphasizes the sharp contrast between the industrial understanding of electricity as a resource to be harnessed for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of life force as an innate life force in animals, people, and land. The gallery's past as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their human rights, livelihoods, and way of life are threatened. "It's hard being such a limited population to defend yourself when the arguments are grounded in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Mining practices has co-opted the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to continue patterns of consumption."

Family Conflicts

She and her family have themselves disagreed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's sibling initiated a sequence of unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara created a extended series of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge screen of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was shown at the the show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work seems the sole domain in which they can be heard by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|