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Visitors to Tate Modern are familiar to unusual experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They've basked under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose passages of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this huge space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a winding design modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal airways. Inside, they can stroll around or unwind on pelts, listening on headphones to community leaders telling narratives and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It may seem quirky, but the artwork celebrates a rarely recognized scientific wonder: experts have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it takes in by eighty degrees, helping the creature to endure in harsh Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "produces a feeling of smallness that you as a person are not in control over nature." The artist is a ex- journalist, children's author, and rights advocate, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that generates the possibility to shift your outlook or spark some humbleness," she continues.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The winding design is part of a elements in Sara's absorbing commission honoring the traditions, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured oppression, integration policies, and eradication of their language by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the work also spotlights the people's struggles associated with the environmental emergency, property rights, and external control.

Meaning in Elements

At the lengthy entry ramp, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot formation of pelts entangled by utility lines. It serves as a symbol for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this part of the installation, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, wherein solid layers of ice develop as changing conditions liquefy and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter nourishment, moss. Goavvi is a consequence of planetary warming, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than in other regions.

A few years back, I met with Sara in a remote town during a icy season and accompanied Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they transported containers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured tundra to provide by hand. These animals gathered round us, digging the slippery ground in vain for lichen-covered morsels. This expensive and demanding procedure is having a severe impact on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. But the choice is starvation. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are perishing—some from lack of food, others drowning after plunging into water bodies through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the installation is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

This artwork also underscores the clear divergence between the modern interpretation of electricity as a commodity to be harnessed for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of life force as an natural life force in creatures, individuals, and the environment. This venue's legacy as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and culture are endangered. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Extractivism has co-opted the rhetoric of ecology, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find better ways to continue practices of consumption."

Family Challenges

The artist and her kin have themselves clashed with the national administration over its tightening policies on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a series of finally failed court actions over the forced culling of his herd, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara produced a four-year series of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive drape of 400 cranial remains, which was displayed at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it resides in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Activism

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