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Guests to Tate Modern are used to unusual encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an man-made sun, glided down helter skelters, and observed robotic jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this cavernous space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a maze-like design inspired by the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can meander around or relax on skins, listening on earphones to Sámi elders imparting tales and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It might seem quirky, but the artwork honors a little-known biological feat: scientists have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, helping the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "generates a perception of inferiority that you as a human being are not in control over nature." Sara is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and land defender, who is from a herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the potential to shift your viewpoint or evoke some humility," she states.

An Homage to Indigenous Heritage

The winding design is part of a components in Sara's immersive commission showcasing the heritage, science, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Partially migratory, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They have faced persecution, forced assimilation, and suppression of their tongue by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the installation also spotlights the people's challenges associated with the climate crisis, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Components

At the lengthy access ramp, there's a towering, 26-metre sculpture of skins entangled by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this section of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein solid layers of ice appear as changing temperatures melt and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season food, lichen. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Far North than elsewhere.

A few years back, I met with Sara in a remote town during a icy season and joined Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the barren tundra to dispense manually. The reindeer surrounded round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and labour-intensive process is having a drastic influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the choice is malnutrition. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from starvation, others drowning after falling into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

The installation also highlights the sharp divergence between the western interpretation of electricity as a asset to be harnessed for gain and existence and the Sámi worldview of life force as an natural power in creatures, humans, and land. This venue's history as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their legal protections, livelihoods, and culture are endangered. "It's challenging being such a limited population to protect your rights when the arguments are rooted in saving the world," Sara notes. "Extractivism has appropriated the discourse of environmentalism, but still it's just aiming to find alternative ways to persist in habits of consumption."

Family Struggles

Sara and her relatives have personally conflicted with the state authorities over its ever-stricter policies on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of unsuccessful lawsuits over the forced culling of his herd, apparently to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara produced a extended collection of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi including a massive curtain of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entrance.

Art as Awareness

Among the community, creative work appears the sole domain in which they can be understood by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|