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Visitors to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have basked under an simulated sun, slid down amusement rides, and witnessed robotic sea creatures hovering through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this huge space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a maze-like structure modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can stroll around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to community leaders telling tales and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It may sound quirky, but the artwork pays tribute to a rarely recognized scientific wonder: scientists have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it takes in by 80°C, enabling the animal to thrive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "creates a perception of smallness that you as a person are not dominant over nature." She is a ex- journalist, young adult author, and land defender, who hails from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that generates the possibility to alter your perspective or spark some modesty," she adds.

An Homage to Sámi Culture

The maze-like structure is one of several features in Sara's absorbing exhibition showcasing the culture, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They've endured oppression, integration policies, and eradication of their tongue by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the installation also draws attention to the people's challenges associated with the global warming, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Components

At the extended entrance slope, there's a towering, 26-metre formation of reindeer hides trapped by electrical wires. It serves as a symbol for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this part of the exhibit, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid sheets of ice develop as fluctuating conditions thaw and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter nourishment, fungus. The condition is a outcome of global heating, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they carried containers of supplementary feed on to the barren frozen landscape to provide manually. The herd crowded round us, digging the slippery ground in futility for mossy pieces. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive process is having a severe influence on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the choice is starvation. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are dying—a number from starvation, others submerging after falling into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the work is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

This artwork also underscores the sharp divergence between the industrial view of power as a resource to be utilized for gain and survival and the Sámi worldview of energy as an innate essence in creatures, individuals, and land. The gallery's past as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by regional governments. As they strive to be exemplars for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their legal protections, livelihoods, and culture are threatened. "It's hard being such a small minority to defend yourself when the arguments are rooted in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Extractivism has appropriated the rhetoric of ecology, but yet it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to persist in habits of use."

Family Challenges

The artist and her family have themselves disagreed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent regulations on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of finally failed court actions over the required reduction of his animals, supposedly to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a multi-year set of creations named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal drape of 400 reindeer skulls, which was exhibited at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it resides in the lobby.

Art as Activism

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