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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an artificial sun, descended down amusement rides, and seen automated sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this huge space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a labyrinthine structure based on the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to community leaders sharing narratives and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It might seem whimsical, but the artwork celebrates a obscure natural marvel: scientists have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "generates a perception of smallness that you as a individual are not superior over nature." The artist is a former writer, young adult author, and environmental activist, who is from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that fosters the possibility to shift your outlook or trigger some humility," she adds.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The winding structure is among various components in Sara's absorbing art project celebrating the traditions, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, cultural suppression, and eradication of their tongue by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also draws attention to the group's struggles relating to the global warming, property rights, and colonialism.

Meaning in Materials

At the lengthy entrance ramp, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot structure of reindeer hides ensnared by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this component of the artwork, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, in which thick coatings of ice develop as varying conditions liquefy and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' key winter nourishment, moss. Goavvi is a consequence of planetary warming, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than globally.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they carried carts of animal nutrition on to the exposed frozen landscape to distribute through labor. The reindeer crowded round us, digging the icy ground in futility for mossy pieces. This costly and labour-intensive method is having a significant influence on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. However the alternative is death. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are succumbing—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after plunging into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the installation is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

This artwork also underscores the stark divergence between the modern understanding of power as a resource to be exploited for gain and survival and the Sámi worldview of life force as an inherent life force in creatures, humans, and nature. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be leaders for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their human rights, livelihoods, and traditions are threatened. "It's challenging being such a small minority to defend yourself when the justifications are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has adopted the language of environmentalism, but yet it's just striving to find better ways to continue practices of consumption."

Personal Conflicts

She and her family have personally disagreed with the state authorities over its tightening rules on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's sibling initiated a set of unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a four-year series of creations named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal curtain of numerous reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entrance.

Art as Activism

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