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Visitors to the renowned gallery are used to surprising experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have basked under an artificial sun, glided down helter skelters, and witnessed AI-powered jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nose cavities of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this cavernous space—designed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a maze-like construction based on the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Once inside, they can meander around or chill out on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors imparting tales and knowledge.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It could sound playful, but the artwork pays tribute to a obscure scientific wonder: scientists have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the creature to thrive in harsh Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "creates a feeling of smallness that you as a human being are not superior over nature." She is a former journalist, writer for kids, and land defender, who is from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that generates the possibility to change your viewpoint or evoke some modesty," she adds.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The winding structure is part of a components in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the traditions, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi number about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They've endured persecution, forced assimilation, and repression of their tongue by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also highlights the people's challenges connected to the climate crisis, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Elements

On the extended entrance slope, there's a soaring, 26-metre sculpture of pelts trapped by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this component of the installation, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid sheets of ice develop as changing weather liquefy and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season food, lichen. The condition is a outcome of global heating, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Far North than globally.

A few years back, I visited Sara in a remote town during a icy season and went with Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they hauled trailers of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured tundra to provide manually. The reindeer gathered round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain attempts for mossy pieces. This costly and labour-intensive method is having a significant effect on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the choice is malnutrition. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others submerging after plunging into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the work is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

The installation also highlights the sharp difference between the modern interpretation of power as a asset to be exploited for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi outlook of energy as an natural life force in animals, individuals, and the environment. Tate Modern's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be leaders for sustainable power, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their human rights, livelihoods, and traditions are endangered. "It's hard being such a limited population to stand your ground when the arguments are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Extractivism has adopted the rhetoric of ecology, but yet it's just attempting to find better ways to maintain patterns of consumption."

Family Struggles

She and her relatives have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its tightening rules on herding. In 2016, Sara's sibling undertook a sequence of unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara developed a extended collection of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive screen of 400 animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it resides in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

Among the community, creative work is the exclusive sphere in which they can be understood by outsiders. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|