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Guests to Tate Modern are familiar to surprising displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, slid down amusement rides, and observed robotic sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose chambers of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a maze-like design modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or chill out on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to community leaders sharing tales and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It may sound quirky, but the installation celebrates a little-known biological feat: researchers have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, helping the creature to thrive in harsh Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "produces a feeling of insignificance that you as a person are not in control over nature." She is a ex- writer, young adult author, and land defender, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that creates the potential to change your outlook or evoke some humility," she continues.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine design is part of a features in Sara's immersive exhibition celebrating the traditions, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced persecution, cultural suppression, and repression of their tongue by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the installation also spotlights the group's struggles associated with the global warming, property rights, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Elements

On the long access slope, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot formation of skins ensnared by power and light cables. It can be read as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this part of the artwork, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, wherein dense sheets of ice develop as fluctuating temperatures melt and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' key cold-season nourishment, moss. The condition is a consequence of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they carried containers of supplementary feed on to the exposed frozen landscape to provide by hand. These animals gathered round us, scratching the frozen ground in futility for vegetative bits. This costly and laborious process is having a severe effect on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the other option is malnutrition. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are dying—some from lack of food, others drowning after sinking in lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the work is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The installation also underscores the clear divergence between the western view of energy as a commodity to be exploited for profit and survival and the Sámi outlook of energy as an innate life force in creatures, humans, and the environment. The gallery's past as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, river barriers, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and way of life are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to defend yourself when the reasons are based on environmental protection," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the language of environmentalism, but still it's just aiming to find better ways to maintain patterns of expenditure."

Family Challenges

Sara and her kin have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a series of finally failed legal cases over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a extended collection of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive screen of 400 reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it resides in the entrance.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, art is the exclusive domain in which they can be heard by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|