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Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to surprising encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, descended down amusement rides, and observed automated sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nose chambers of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this immense space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a labyrinthine design inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Inside, they can wander around or relax on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders sharing narratives and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It might sound playful, but the artwork celebrates a rarely recognized natural marvel: experts have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it takes in by eighty degrees, helping the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "generates a sense of inferiority that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." Sara is a ex- journalist, young adult author, and environmental activist, who is from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Possibly that generates the potential to shift your perspective or evoke some humility," she continues.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine installation is one of several components in Sara's engaging art project honoring the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi total about 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced persecution, cultural suppression, and eradication of their dialect by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the installation also highlights the group's struggles associated with the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Meaning in Elements

At the long entry slope, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot sculpture of reindeer hides ensnared by electrical wires. It represents a symbol for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, in which dense coatings of ice develop as changing weather liquefy and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season nourishment, fungus. The condition is a outcome of planetary warming, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in freezing temperatures as they carried trailers of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to dispense through labor. The reindeer crowded round us, pawing the icy ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered bits. This costly and demanding process is having a severe impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. However the alternative is starvation. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are dying—some from starvation, others drowning after falling into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the art is a monument to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The installation also emphasizes the sharp divergence between the industrial understanding of electricity as a asset to be utilized for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of life force as an inherent essence in creatures, people, and the environment. This venue's legacy as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be leaders for sustainable power, Nordic nations have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their legal protections, ways of life, and way of life are at risk. "It's challenging being such a limited population to stand your ground when the justifications are based on global sustainability," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but still it's just attempting to find alternative ways to continue habits of use."

Personal Struggles

The artist and her family have personally conflicted with the state authorities over its ever-stricter policies on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's sibling initiated a set of unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his herd, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara produced a multi-year collection of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi including a massive curtain of 400 cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it is displayed in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Activism

For many Sámi, creative work seems the exclusive realm in which they can be understood by outsiders. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|