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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, slid down amusement rides, and observed AI-powered jellyfish hovering through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose cavities of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this cavernous space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a labyrinthine construction inspired by the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can stroll around or unwind on pelts, listening on earphones to community leaders telling narratives and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It might appear quirky, but the installation honors a obscure natural marvel: experts have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it inhales by 80°C, allowing the creature to survive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "produces a perception of inferiority that you as a person are not in control over nature." She is a former reporter, children's author, and land defender, who hails from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that generates the chance to alter your perspective or spark some humbleness," she adds.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The maze-like installation is one of several elements in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the culture, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi count about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced discrimination, cultural suppression, and eradication of their language by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also draws attention to the people's struggles associated with the environmental emergency, property rights, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Components

At the long entrance incline, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot sculpture of reindeer hides ensnared by utility lines. It serves as a analogy for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the artwork, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, wherein dense layers of ice appear as fluctuating conditions melt and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary cold-season sustenance, moss. This phenomenon is a consequence of climate change, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Far North than elsewhere.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they carried containers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to dispense by hand. The herd gathered round us, scratching the slippery ground in futility for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and demanding process is having a severe effect on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the choice is starvation. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are dying—some from hunger, others submerging after falling into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the work is a monument to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

This artwork also highlights the sharp difference between the western interpretation of energy as a asset to be exploited for profit and survival and the Sámi outlook of energy as an innate life force in creatures, individuals, and land. Tate Modern's history as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be standard bearers for renewable energy, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, river barriers, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their human rights, ways of life, and traditions are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to stand your ground when the arguments are based on saving the world," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the rhetoric of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just striving to find more suitable ways to persist in practices of consumption."

Family Struggles

The artist and her family have personally conflicted with the national administration over its tightening policies on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a set of finally failed legal cases over the required reduction of his herd, apparently to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara created a multi-year series of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive drape of four hundred cranial remains, which was displayed at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work seems the exclusive realm in which they can be listened to by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|