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Visitors to Tate Modern are familiar to unusual experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an simulated sun, glided down spiral slides, and seen AI-powered jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this huge space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a winding structure based on the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Upon entering, they can wander around or chill out on skins, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors imparting tales and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It may appear quirky, but the exhibit celebrates a little-known biological feat: experts have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to thrive in harsh Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "generates a sense of smallness that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, children's author, and environmental activist, who is from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that generates the possibility to shift your viewpoint or evoke some humility," she states.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The winding installation is among various features in Sara's absorbing commission showcasing the traditions, science, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total about 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced oppression, integration policies, and suppression of their dialect by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the art also highlights the people's challenges associated with the climate crisis, property rights, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Elements

Along the long entrance incline, there's a looming, 26-meter formation of skins ensnared by power and light cables. It serves as a metaphor for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this component of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, in which solid layers of ice appear as fluctuating weather liquefy and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter food, moss. The condition is a result of planetary warming, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than globally.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a severe cold period and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the barren tundra to dispense manually. These animals gathered round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain for vegetative morsels. This expensive and laborious process is having a severe influence on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. But the choice is starvation. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others submerging after sinking in water bodies through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the art is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The sculpture also emphasizes the stark difference between the modern interpretation of electricity as a asset to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an innate power in creatures, people, and the environment. Tate Modern's history as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. As they strive to be leaders for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the construction of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their legal protections, livelihoods, and culture are at risk. "It's challenging being such a small minority to protect your rights when the arguments are based on environmental protection," Sara comments. "Mining practices has adopted the discourse of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just striving to find more suitable ways to maintain habits of consumption."

Family Struggles

She and her family have personally conflicted with the national administration over its ever-stricter regulations on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother undertook a series of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his animals, supposedly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara developed a four-year series of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi including a massive drape of numerous animal bones, which was shown at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Awareness

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