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Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to surprising displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, descended down amusement rides, and witnessed robotic jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this cavernous space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a labyrinthine construction based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on skins, tuning in on earphones to tribal seniors imparting narratives and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It might appear whimsical, but the artwork celebrates a obscure natural marvel: researchers have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it breathes in by eighty degrees, helping the animal to survive in harsh Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "creates a sense of inferiority that you as a person are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and land defender, who hails from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that generates the potential to alter your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like installation is among various elements in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the traditions, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced oppression, integration policies, and suppression of their dialect by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the installation also draws attention to the community's issues associated with the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and external control.

Symbolism in Elements

On the long entrance incline, there's a looming, 26-metre formation of pelts entangled by electrical wires. It serves as a analogy for the societal frameworks limiting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this component of the installation, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, wherein thick sheets of ice appear as varying weather liquefy and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key winter nourishment, moss. This phenomenon is a consequence of climate change, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Far North than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they transported carts of animal nutrition on to the barren tundra to dispense manually. These animals crowded round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain attempts for mossy bits. This resource-intensive and laborious method is having a significant impact on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. However the other option is death. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from starvation, others submerging after falling into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the installation is a tribute to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

The installation also emphasizes the stark contrast between the modern view of energy as a asset to be utilized for profit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of energy as an natural life force in animals, individuals, and the environment. Tate Modern's past as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, water power facilities, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and traditions are at risk. "It's hard being such a limited population to protect your rights when the justifications are rooted in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Extractivism has appropriated the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just striving to find better ways to continue practices of expenditure."

Family Conflicts

Sara and her kin have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter rules on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother embarked on a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his livestock, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a four-year collection of creations called Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal curtain of 400 animal bones, which was displayed at the the event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, art appears the sole domain in which they can be listened to by outsiders. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|