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Visitors to the renowned gallery are familiar to unexpected experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've basked under an artificial sun, slid down helter skelters, and observed robotic jellyfish drifting through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose cavities of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a winding design modeled after the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal airways. Once inside, they can stroll around or relax on pelts, listening on headphones to community leaders imparting tales and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It may appear playful, but the installation celebrates a rarely recognized scientific wonder: experts have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, helping the animal to thrive in extreme Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "produces a feeling of insignificance that you as a human being are not in control over nature." Sara is a former writer, children's author, and environmental activist, who hails from a herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the possibility to alter your perspective or spark some modesty," she states.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine design is among various components in Sara's immersive commission honoring the traditions, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number about 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They have endured oppression, cultural suppression, and eradication of their language by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the art also draws attention to the community's struggles associated with the climate crisis, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Symbolism in Elements

On the extended entry slope, there's a looming, 26-metre formation of skins entangled by utility lines. It serves as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this component of the artwork, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein solid sheets of ice appear as varying weather melt and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter nourishment, lichen. The condition is a outcome of planetary warming, which is happening up to four times faster in the Arctic than globally.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a icy season and joined Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they carried carts of animal nutrition on to the exposed frozen landscape to provide by hand. The reindeer gathered round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain attempts for vegetative morsels. This costly and laborious procedure is having a significant effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. Yet the alternative is death. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are dying—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after falling into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the installation is a monument to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The sculpture also highlights the clear divergence between the industrial understanding of electricity as a asset to be utilized for profit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an natural essence in animals, people, and the environment. Tate Modern's history as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be leaders for clean sources, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, river barriers, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi assert their human rights, ways of life, and culture are threatened. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the justifications are grounded in saving the world," Sara comments. "Mining practices has adopted the language of sustainability, but yet it's just striving to find better ways to maintain practices of expenditure."

Personal Challenges

The artist and her kin have themselves conflicted with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter policies on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's sibling undertook a set of unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. To back him, Sara created a four-year collection of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal drape of numerous animal bones, which was shown at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Activism

Among the community, creative work is the exclusive sphere in which they can be heard by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|