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Visitors to Tate Modern are familiar to surprising encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an man-made sun, descended down helter skelters, and observed robotic sea creatures hovering through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this immense space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like structure based on the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal airways. Upon entering, they can wander around or unwind on pelts, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders telling tales and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It could appear whimsical, but the installation celebrates a obscure scientific wonder: researchers have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to thrive in harsh Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "generates a sense of smallness that you as a person are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, children's author, and land defender, who is from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Possibly that fosters the possibility to alter your outlook or evoke some humbleness," she states.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The winding installation is among various elements in Sara's immersive commission showcasing the culture, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total about 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They have faced persecution, integration policies, and repression of their dialect by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the work also draws attention to the community's challenges associated with the climate crisis, land dispossession, and external control.

Metaphor in Components

On the extended access ramp, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot structure of reindeer hides entangled by electrical wires. It can be read as a analogy for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this component of the exhibit, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, wherein dense sheets of ice form as varying conditions thaw and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season food, fungus. This phenomenon is a consequence of climate change, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than globally.

Previously, I met with Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and joined Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they transported containers of food pellets on to the exposed tundra to distribute manually. The reindeer surrounded round us, digging the slippery ground in vain for lichen-covered morsels. This expensive and laborious method is having a significant effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. Yet the choice is malnutrition. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after plunging into water bodies through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the work is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The installation also highlights the sharp difference between the industrial interpretation of power as a resource to be harnessed for gain and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an natural power in animals, humans, and the environment. This venue's past as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be exemplars for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and way of life are endangered. "It's hard being such a small minority to protect your rights when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Mining practices has adopted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to persist in habits of use."

Personal Conflicts

Sara and her relatives have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's brother embarked on a sequence of finally failed legal cases over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara created a four-year collection of creations called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal curtain of 400 reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Awareness

Among the community, creative work appears 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|