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Visitors to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unexpected encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an simulated sun, descended down spiral slides, and observed AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose chambers of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like structure inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can meander around or chill out on pelts, listening on headphones to community leaders imparting stories and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It might seem quirky, but the exhibit honors a rarely recognized biological feat: experts have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the animal to survive in harsh Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "creates a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." The artist is a ex- journalist, young adult author, and rights advocate, who is from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that generates the potential to alter your perspective or evoke some modesty," she adds.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The winding installation is among various elements in Sara's absorbing exhibition celebrating the traditions, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've endured discrimination, integration policies, and suppression of their tongue by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the work also highlights the community's issues associated with the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Elements

Along the long entrance incline, there's a towering, 26-meter structure of pelts entangled by utility lines. It serves as a metaphor for the societal frameworks limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this component of the artwork, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which thick sheets of ice develop as fluctuating conditions thaw and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, lichen. The condition is a consequence of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than globally.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they transported carts of food pellets on to the exposed tundra to distribute through labor. The herd surrounded round us, digging the frozen ground in futility for vegetative bits. This resource-intensive and laborious procedure is having a drastic effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. But the alternative is malnutrition. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after falling into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the work is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The sculpture also highlights the stark divergence between the industrial understanding of electricity as a commodity to be utilized for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an natural life force in creatures, humans, and land. Tate Modern's past as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be standard bearers for clean sources, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their human rights, incomes, and way of life are endangered. "It's hard being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the reasons are grounded in environmental protection," Sara notes. "Mining practices has appropriated the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to maintain patterns of use."

Personal Struggles

She and her family have themselves conflicted with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter policies on herding. In 2016, Sara's brother embarked on a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his animals, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a multi-year series of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal screen of numerous animal bones, which was exhibited at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Activism

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