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Attendees to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They've basked under an artificial sun, descended down amusement rides, and observed automated sea creatures hovering through the air. However this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nose cavities of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a winding construction inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Once inside, they can wander around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to community leaders imparting narratives and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It may seem playful, but the artwork pays tribute to a obscure biological feat: scientists have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, helping the animal to survive in inhospitable Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "produces a perception of smallness that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." She is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and environmental activist, who hails from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that fosters the chance to alter your outlook or spark some modesty," she continues.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The winding design is one of several features in Sara's engaging exhibition celebrating the heritage, knowledge, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They have endured oppression, cultural suppression, and repression of their tongue by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and founding narrative, the art also highlights the community's struggles connected to the global warming, land dispossession, and external control.

Symbolism in Components

On the extended access slope, there's a towering, 26-metre structure of reindeer hides entangled by utility lines. It serves as a analogy for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this component of the artwork, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby solid layers of ice form as changing conditions thaw and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter sustenance, moss. This phenomenon is a result of global heating, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than globally.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they carried containers of food pellets on to the barren tundra to dispense manually. These animals crowded round us, digging the slippery ground in vain for mossy morsels. This costly and labour-intensive procedure is having a drastic effect on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. However the other option is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are perishing—some from lack of food, others submerging after falling into water bodies through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the art is a monument to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The installation also highlights the stark contrast between the modern view of power as a asset to be harnessed for profit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an innate power in creatures, humans, and land. Tate Modern's past as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi assert their legal protections, ways of life, and culture are at risk. "It's hard being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has adopted the discourse of sustainability, but yet it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to continue practices of use."

Family Conflicts

Sara and her relatives have personally conflicted with the national administration over its increasingly stringent regulations on herding. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a series of finally failed court actions over the forced culling of his livestock, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara developed a extended set of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal drape of 400 cranial remains, which was displayed at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work appears the only realm in which they can be heard by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|