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Attendees to the renowned gallery are familiar to unusual experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an man-made sun, slid down helter skelters, and witnessed robotic jellyfish drifting through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nose cavities of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this cavernous space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a winding construction inspired by the expanded inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Once inside, they can stroll around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to Sámi elders sharing tales and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It might seem playful, but the exhibit honors a rarely recognized natural marvel: experts have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it breathes in by 80°C, enabling the creature to endure in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "generates a sense of smallness that you as a individual are not in control over nature." Sara is a former writer, young adult author, and rights advocate, who comes from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that generates the potential to alter your outlook or evoke some modesty," she states.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The maze-like installation is one of several components in Sara's absorbing art project celebrating the heritage, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured oppression, cultural suppression, and eradication of their dialect by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the installation also highlights the people's struggles connected to the climate crisis, property rights, and external control.

Symbolism in Elements

On the long entry incline, there's a towering, 26-metre formation of pelts ensnared by utility lines. It serves as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this component of the artwork, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, wherein dense layers of ice develop as fluctuating weather thaw and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary cold-season food, lichen. This phenomenon is a consequence of global heating, which is happening up to four times faster in the Arctic than globally.

Previously, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they carried containers of animal nutrition on to the exposed Arctic plains to dispense manually. These animals gathered round us, scratching the icy ground in vain attempts for vegetative morsels. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive process is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. But the other option is death. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after plunging into water bodies through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the work is a tribute to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The sculpture also underscores the clear contrast between the modern interpretation of electricity as a asset to be harnessed for profit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an inherent power in animals, people, and land. Tate Modern's history as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be standard bearers for clean sources, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and way of life are endangered. "It's challenging being such a limited population to protect your rights when the justifications are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find better ways to maintain practices of use."

Family Challenges

Sara and her kin have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent regulations on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's sibling undertook a set of unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara created a four-year set of creations named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal drape of four hundred cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it hangs in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, art seems the only sphere in which they can be heard by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|