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Visitors to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, glided down amusement rides, and witnessed AI-powered jellyfish hovering through the air. But this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nose passages of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a labyrinthine design modeled after the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Once inside, they can meander around or unwind on skins, listening on earphones to community leaders imparting narratives and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It may sound playful, but the exhibit celebrates a rarely recognized scientific wonder: researchers have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, helping the creature to survive in harsh Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "generates a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a former journalist, children's author, and rights advocate, who hails from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that creates the chance to alter your viewpoint or evoke some modesty," she continues.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The winding design is among various components in Sara's engaging art project showcasing the heritage, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They have endured discrimination, forced assimilation, and repression of their language by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the art also spotlights the people's struggles associated with the environmental emergency, property rights, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Components

At the long entry ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter formation of reindeer hides trapped by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this section of the artwork, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby solid coatings of ice form as varying temperatures liquefy and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary cold-season sustenance, moss. Goavvi is a outcome of climate change, which is happening up to four times faster in the Polar region than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they carried trailers of food pellets on to the exposed Arctic plains to distribute by hand. The reindeer surrounded round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain attempts for mossy pieces. This resource-intensive and laborious procedure is having a significant effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. But the choice is starvation. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others submerging after falling into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the art is a tribute to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The installation also emphasizes the sharp divergence between the industrial view of energy as a commodity to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of energy as an inherent power in creatures, humans, and the environment. This venue's legacy as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by regional governments. As they strive to be exemplars for clean sources, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, river barriers, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their legal protections, livelihoods, and way of life are endangered. "It's hard being such a small minority to defend yourself when the justifications are grounded in environmental protection," Sara notes. "Mining practices has adopted the discourse of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find alternative ways to persist in patterns of expenditure."

Family Conflicts

Sara and her kin have themselves clashed with the national administration over its increasingly stringent rules on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's sibling undertook a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his herd, apparently to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a extended set of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi including a massive drape of numerous reindeer skulls, which was shown at the the show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, visual expression seems the sole realm in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|