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Visitors to the renowned gallery are used to unusual encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have basked under an simulated sun, slid down amusement rides, and seen automated sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a labyrinthine design based on the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors telling narratives and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It could sound quirky, but the artwork pays tribute to a obscure biological feat: experts have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it takes in by 80°C, helping the animal to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "creates a perception of inferiority that you as a person are not in control over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, young adult author, and land defender, who hails from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Possibly that fosters the chance to alter your viewpoint or evoke some humility," she continues.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine structure is among various components in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the culture, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They have experienced oppression, cultural suppression, and eradication of their dialect by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the installation also spotlights the people's struggles relating to the environmental emergency, property rights, and external control.

Meaning in Elements

On the long entrance incline, there's a soaring, 26-metre structure of skins entangled by utility lines. It represents a symbol for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this part of the installation, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, wherein thick coatings of ice develop as changing weather liquefy and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary cold-season sustenance, lichen. Goavvi is a consequence of global heating, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Far North than in other regions.

A few years back, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they carried carts of supplementary feed on to the barren Arctic plains to dispense by hand. The herd surrounded round us, pawing the slippery ground in futility for mossy pieces. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive method is having a drastic influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from lack of food, others suffocating after sinking in lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the installation is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

This artwork also underscores the stark contrast between the industrial view of power as a resource to be harnessed for profit and survival and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an natural life force in animals, humans, and land. Tate Modern's history as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, river barriers, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their human rights, livelihoods, and culture are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to defend yourself when the reasons are rooted in saving the world," Sara observes. "Extractivism has adopted the rhetoric of sustainability, but yet it's just aiming to find alternative ways to persist in patterns of expenditure."

Individual Struggles

The artist and her family have themselves clashed with the national administration over its increasingly stringent regulations on herding. Previously, Sara's brother initiated a set of unsuccessful legal cases over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a four-year collection of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive curtain of four hundred animal bones, which was exhibited at the the event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it resides in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Awareness

Among the community, visual expression seems the only domain in which they can be heard by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|