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Attendees to the renowned gallery are familiar to unusual displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an artificial sun, glided down spiral slides, and seen robotic jellyfish floating through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nose cavities of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this immense space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a maze-like design inspired by the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, listening on earphones to community leaders imparting stories and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It might sound quirky, but the exhibit pays tribute to a obscure natural marvel: experts have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the creature to endure in extreme Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "generates a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." Sara is a former journalist, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who is from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Maybe that creates the potential to alter your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like installation is one of several features in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the culture, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi number about 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They've faced oppression, integration policies, and suppression of their language by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the art also spotlights the group's struggles associated with the climate crisis, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Components

On the long entrance ramp, there's a looming, 26-meter structure of reindeer hides trapped by utility lines. It serves as a analogy for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this component of the exhibit, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, whereby thick layers of ice appear as fluctuating conditions liquefy and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, lichen. This phenomenon is a outcome of planetary warming, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and accompanied Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they carried trailers of animal nutrition on to the barren frozen landscape to provide manually. The reindeer crowded round us, pawing the frozen ground in vain for mossy bits. This resource-intensive and demanding method is having a severe effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the choice is starvation. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are perishing—some from lack of food, others suffocating after sinking in streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the work is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

This artwork also emphasizes the clear divergence between the modern understanding of energy as a commodity to be utilized for gain and survival and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an natural power in creatures, humans, and land. Tate Modern's past as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by regional governments. While attempting to be standard bearers for clean sources, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their human rights, incomes, and culture are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to stand your ground when the reasons are rooted in saving the world," Sara notes. "Mining practices has appropriated the language of sustainability, but yet it's just attempting to find better ways to persist in habits of use."

Personal Challenges

Sara and her family have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on herding. A few years ago, Sara's sibling initiated a series of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his herd, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara developed a four-year series of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge curtain of numerous cranial remains, which was exhibited at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it hangs in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Awareness

Among the community, art seems the exclusive sphere in which they can be heard by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|