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Visitors to Tate Modern are familiar to surprising displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and witnessed AI-powered jellyfish hovering through the air. But this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose chambers of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this huge space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a winding design inspired by the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Inside, they can wander around or unwind on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders telling stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It could sound quirky, but the installation honors a little-known natural marvel: experts have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it takes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to survive in extreme Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "creates a perception of insignificance that you as a human being are not superior over nature." She is a ex- journalist, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who hails from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the possibility to shift your viewpoint or trigger some humbleness," she continues.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The winding installation is part of a components in Sara's immersive art project honoring the traditions, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, integration policies, and repression of their language by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the art also highlights the community's challenges connected to the environmental emergency, property rights, and colonialism.

Meaning in Components

At the lengthy access incline, there's a towering, 26-meter structure of reindeer hides trapped by utility lines. It can be read as a analogy for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this part of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, wherein solid sheets of ice form as changing weather melt and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season food, lichen. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is happening up to four times faster in the Polar region than globally.

Previously, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and joined Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they transported carts of animal nutrition on to the barren frozen landscape to provide by hand. These animals crowded round us, pawing the frozen ground in futility for lichen-covered bits. This resource-intensive and laborious process is having a drastic impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. However the other option is death. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from lack of food, others drowning after sinking in lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the art is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The installation also emphasizes the sharp contrast between the western interpretation of energy as a asset to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an innate essence in creatures, individuals, and the environment. This venue's history as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by regional governments. While attempting to be leaders for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and traditions are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to protect your rights when the reasons are grounded in environmental protection," Sara comments. "Extractivism has co-opted the rhetoric of sustainability, but yet it's just striving to find better ways to continue habits of expenditure."

Personal Conflicts

Sara and her relatives have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent policies on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a sequence of finally failed legal cases over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara created a multi-year collection of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi including a massive drape of 400 cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it resides in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For many Sámi, art appears the only realm in which they can be listened to by outsiders. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|