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Visitors to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've basked under an simulated sun, slid down spiral slides, and seen automated sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nose chambers of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this huge space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like structure based on the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Upon entering, they can stroll around or chill out on skins, tuning in on earphones to community leaders sharing stories and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It could seem whimsical, but the artwork pays tribute to a little-known natural marvel: scientists have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by eighty degrees, helping the creature to thrive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "generates a sense of inferiority that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, writer for kids, and land defender, who is from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that fosters the possibility to alter your outlook or spark some humbleness," she states.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The winding structure is one of several features in Sara's immersive exhibition honoring the culture, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi count about 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, forced assimilation, and eradication of their tongue by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the art also draws attention to the community's struggles associated with the global warming, property rights, and colonialism.

Meaning in Components

On the lengthy access slope, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot sculpture of reindeer hides trapped by utility lines. It serves as a symbol for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this component of the artwork, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which solid sheets of ice develop as fluctuating weather liquefy and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season nourishment, fungus. This phenomenon is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Far North than in other regions.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and joined Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in freezing temperatures as they carried carts of food pellets on to the exposed tundra to distribute manually. These animals crowded round us, scratching the icy ground in futility for vegetative morsels. This expensive and labour-intensive process is having a significant effect on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the choice is death. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from starvation, others drowning after sinking in water bodies through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the installation is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

This artwork also underscores the clear divergence between the modern understanding of electricity as a asset to be harnessed for profit and survival and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an innate power in animals, humans, and the environment. Tate Modern's history as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be standard bearers for renewable energy, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, river barriers, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their legal protections, incomes, and culture are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to stand your ground when the justifications are based on saving the world," Sara comments. "Extractivism has adopted the language of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just striving to find more suitable ways to continue practices of use."

Individual Struggles

Sara and her family have themselves clashed with the national administration over its ever-stricter regulations on herding. In 2016, Sara's sibling undertook a sequence of unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his herd, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a extended collection of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge screen of numerous cranial remains, which was displayed at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it hangs in the entryway.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, visual expression is the only domain in which they can be understood by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|