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Attendees to Tate Modern are familiar to unusual displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've basked under an man-made sun, descended down spiral slides, and observed automated jellyfish floating through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a winding structure inspired by the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Once inside, they can meander around or unwind on skins, tuning in on earphones to tribal seniors telling tales and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It could seem whimsical, but the artwork celebrates a obscure natural marvel: experts have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it inhales by eighty degrees, helping the creature to thrive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "creates a feeling of inferiority that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, children's author, and land defender, who hails from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that fosters the possibility to shift your outlook or trigger some modesty," she states.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine design is among various elements in Sara's engaging commission showcasing the traditions, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi total about 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They've experienced oppression, forced assimilation, and repression of their language by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the art also spotlights the community's challenges associated with the climate crisis, property rights, and external control.

Metaphor in Elements

At the lengthy entrance incline, there's a looming, 26-meter sculpture of pelts trapped by utility lines. It represents a metaphor for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this component of the installation, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which solid coatings of ice appear as varying temperatures thaw and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, moss. This phenomenon is a result of global heating, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

Previously, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a severe cold period and went with Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they hauled trailers of supplementary feed on to the barren tundra to distribute by hand. The reindeer surrounded round us, digging the slippery ground in futility for vegetative morsels. This resource-intensive and laborious procedure is having a severe effect on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the alternative is starvation. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are dying—some from starvation, others submerging after falling into water bodies through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the art is a monument to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

This artwork also emphasizes the clear difference between the industrial interpretation of power as a resource to be harnessed for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi worldview of energy as an innate essence in animals, individuals, and land. This venue's past as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be leaders for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and culture are at risk. "It's hard being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the arguments are based on saving the world," Sara observes. "Extractivism has adopted the language of environmentalism, but still it's just striving to find better ways to persist in patterns of expenditure."

Family Struggles

The artist and her family have themselves clashed with the state authorities over its tightening policies on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his herd, supposedly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara created a four-year collection of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal drape of numerous cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

Among the community, art appears the exclusive sphere in which they can be understood by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|