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Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an simulated sun, slid down spiral slides, and witnessed automated jellyfish hovering through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a labyrinthine construction based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nose airways. Upon entering, they can wander around or chill out on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders sharing stories and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It could sound playful, but the artwork celebrates a little-known natural marvel: scientists have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "generates a perception of smallness that you as a individual are not in control over nature." Sara is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and rights advocate, who hails from a herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that generates the potential to alter your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she continues.

An Homage to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine structure is one of several components in Sara's engaging commission honoring the traditions, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They have endured persecution, cultural suppression, and repression of their language by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the work also spotlights the group's struggles connected to the global warming, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Elements

At the long access slope, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot sculpture of skins ensnared by utility lines. It can be read as a analogy for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this section of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, whereby dense sheets of ice form as changing conditions liquefy and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season food, fungus. The condition is a outcome of planetary warming, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Far North than elsewhere.

A few years back, I visited Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they hauled carts of supplementary feed on to the barren Arctic plains to provide by hand. The herd surrounded round us, digging the slippery ground in futility for mossy pieces. This resource-intensive and laborious process is having a drastic influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. But the alternative is starvation. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from hunger, others drowning after sinking in water bodies through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the work is a tribute to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

This artwork also highlights the clear difference between the industrial interpretation of power as a resource to be exploited for profit and existence and the Sámi outlook of life force as an natural power in animals, individuals, and land. The gallery's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by regional governments. While attempting to be leaders for clean sources, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, river barriers, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and culture are at risk. "It's challenging being such a limited population to protect your rights when the justifications are based on global sustainability," Sara observes. "Extractivism has adopted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to maintain habits of expenditure."

Family Struggles

Sara and her relatives have personally disagreed with the national administration over its tightening rules on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara created a four-year set of creations named Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal curtain of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Art as Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, art seems the exclusive sphere in which they can be heard by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|