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Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to surprising encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an artificial sun, descended down helter skelters, and observed automated jellyfish hovering through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a labyrinthine structure modeled after the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or relax on skins, listening on earphones to community leaders sharing tales and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It might appear playful, but the exhibit celebrates a little-known natural marvel: scientists have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it breathes in by 80°C, helping the animal to endure in harsh Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "produces a perception of smallness that you as a human being are not superior over nature." She is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and land defender, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that fosters the possibility to change your viewpoint or evoke some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The winding installation is one of several features in Sara's absorbing exhibition honoring the culture, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi total about 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They have endured oppression, forced assimilation, and eradication of their dialect by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the installation also highlights the community's challenges relating to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Elements

At the lengthy entry slope, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot formation of skins entangled by electrical wires. It represents a metaphor for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this component of the installation, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, in which dense layers of ice appear as varying weather melt and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' main cold-season sustenance, moss. Goavvi is a outcome of climate change, which is happening up to four times faster in the Arctic than globally.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and went with Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they transported carts of food pellets on to the wind-scoured tundra to provide by hand. The herd gathered round us, digging the frozen ground in vain for lichen-covered pieces. This costly and demanding procedure is having a significant impact on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. However the other option is starvation. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from lack of food, others drowning after falling into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the work is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The installation also highlights the stark difference between the industrial understanding of energy as a commodity to be exploited for gain and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of energy as an inherent power in animals, people, and land. Tate Modern's history as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be exemplars for renewable energy, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi assert their legal protections, incomes, and culture are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to protect your rights when the reasons are rooted in saving the world," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to maintain practices of expenditure."

Personal Challenges

Sara and her family have themselves disagreed with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent rules on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a series of unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his herd, supposedly to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a multi-year set of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge curtain of numerous reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Activism

For many Sámi, art appears the only sphere in which they can be understood by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|