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Visitors to Tate Modern are accustomed to unexpected experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, descended down spiral slides, and observed robotic sea creatures drifting through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this huge space—developed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a labyrinthine structure based on the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Upon entering, they can meander around or relax on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders sharing stories and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It could appear playful, but the installation celebrates a rarely recognized biological feat: researchers have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it breathes in by eighty degrees, enabling the creature to thrive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a perception of smallness that you as a human being are not superior over nature." The artist is a ex- journalist, children's author, and rights advocate, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that fosters the potential to shift your outlook or spark some humbleness," she states.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The winding design is part of a components in Sara's absorbing exhibition celebrating the traditions, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, integration policies, and repression of their language by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the work also spotlights the group's issues relating to the global warming, property rights, and external control.

Symbolism in Elements

On the extended entrance slope, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot structure of skins trapped 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 component of the installation, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, in which dense layers of ice form as varying temperatures melt and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary winter nourishment, fungus. The condition is a consequence of global heating, which is happening up to four times faster in the Polar region than elsewhere.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they hauled carts of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to distribute manually. These animals gathered round us, pawing the frozen ground in vain attempts for mossy bits. This expensive and laborious procedure is having a drastic influence on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the choice is malnutrition. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after sinking in lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the art is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The sculpture also emphasizes the sharp contrast between the modern interpretation of power as a commodity to be utilized for profit and existence and the Sámi worldview of energy as an inherent power in animals, individuals, and nature. Tate Modern's past as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be leaders for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi contend their legal protections, incomes, and traditions are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the justifications are rooted in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Extractivism has appropriated the rhetoric of ecology, but still it's just striving to find more suitable ways to maintain habits of use."

Family Conflicts

The artist and her relatives have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a series of unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a four-year series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal curtain of numerous cranial remains, which was displayed at the 2017's event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it resides in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Activism

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