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Attendees to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an simulated sun, glided down amusement rides, and observed robotic jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this cavernous space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a winding construction inspired by the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Once inside, they can wander around or unwind on skins, listening on headphones to Sámi elders telling stories and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It could sound quirky, but the installation pays tribute to a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not in control over nature." She is a former writer, young adult author, and land defender, who is from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that generates the possibility to shift your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she states.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The winding installation is part of a features in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the traditions, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have experienced persecution, integration policies, and suppression of their language by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the installation also spotlights the group's issues relating to the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and external control.

Metaphor in Elements

On the long access ramp, there's a soaring, 26-meter sculpture of skins ensnared by utility lines. It serves as a metaphor for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this section of the installation, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, whereby solid coatings of ice develop as fluctuating weather thaw and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' main winter nourishment, moss. The condition is a consequence of global heating, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they carried trailers of food pellets on to the barren tundra to provide through labor. The herd crowded round us, scratching the slippery ground in vain for lichen-covered bits. This expensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a severe impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the alternative is malnutrition. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others submerging after sinking in streams through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the art is a tribute to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

The installation also highlights the stark contrast between the modern interpretation of electricity as a asset to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an inherent life force in creatures, people, and the environment. Tate Modern's past as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by regional governments. As they strive to be standard bearers for clean sources, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and way of life are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to defend yourself when the justifications are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has adopted the language of ecology, but yet it's just attempting to find better ways to persist in habits of use."

Personal Challenges

She and her family have personally clashed with the national administration over its ever-stricter rules on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's sibling undertook a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a multi-year collection of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive curtain of four hundred animal bones, which was displayed at the the event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression seems the exclusive domain in which they can be heard by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|