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Visitors to Tate Modern are used to unexpected displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an artificial sun, descended down spiral slides, and seen AI-powered jellyfish drifting through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this huge space—developed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a labyrinthine structure based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or relax on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to community leaders telling stories and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It could sound playful, but the installation celebrates a little-known biological feat: scientists have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, helping the animal to thrive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "produces a sense of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who is from a herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that generates the potential to alter your outlook or spark some modesty," she states.

An Homage to Sámi Culture

The winding design is one of several elements in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the heritage, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, forced assimilation, and repression of their language by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the installation also highlights the community's challenges connected to the global warming, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Elements

At the lengthy access incline, there's a towering, 26-metre sculpture of reindeer hides ensnared by electrical wires. It represents a metaphor for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this part of the artwork, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein thick sheets of ice appear as changing temperatures melt and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter food, moss. The condition is a outcome of planetary warming, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Far North than globally.

Previously, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they hauled trailers of supplementary feed on to the exposed tundra to dispense manually. These animals gathered round us, digging the frozen ground in futility for lichen-covered bits. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive method is having a significant influence on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the other option is death. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—some from starvation, others drowning after sinking in lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the art is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The installation also emphasizes the stark difference between the modern interpretation of energy as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an natural essence in creatures, individuals, and the environment. This venue's legacy as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be exemplars for clean sources, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their human rights, incomes, and way of life are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to defend yourself when the arguments are based on global sustainability," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has adopted the rhetoric of sustainability, but still it's just striving to find better ways to persist in habits of expenditure."

Personal Struggles

She and her relatives have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening rules on herding. Previously, Sara's sibling undertook a series of finally failed court actions over the required reduction of his herd, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a extended series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge screen of numerous reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entryway.

Art as Activism

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