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Guests to Tate Modern are used to unexpected displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, slid down amusement rides, and witnessed automated jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a labyrinthine construction inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nose airways. Upon entering, they can stroll around or relax on skins, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders imparting tales and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It might sound quirky, but the artwork pays tribute to a obscure biological feat: experts have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to endure in extreme Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "generates a feeling of smallness that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, children's author, and land defender, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that fosters the possibility to alter your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The winding design is among various elements in Sara's engaging commission honoring the culture, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi total about 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They have endured discrimination, forced assimilation, and eradication of their dialect by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the installation also draws attention to the group's struggles connected to the global warming, property rights, and external control.

Meaning in Materials

Along the long entry ramp, there's a soaring, 26-metre structure of skins ensnared by utility lines. It represents a symbol for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this section of the exhibit, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby solid sheets of ice appear as varying conditions melt and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, lichen. This phenomenon is a outcome of climate change, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than globally.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a icy season and went with Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they hauled carts of food pellets on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to distribute by hand. The herd gathered round us, digging the frozen ground in vain for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and laborious procedure is having a drastic effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the alternative is malnutrition. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from hunger, others submerging after sinking in streams through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the installation is a memorial to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

The installation also emphasizes the clear divergence between the industrial interpretation of power as a asset to be exploited for gain and existence and the Sámi outlook of life force as an innate power in creatures, humans, and the environment. Tate Modern's past as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by regional governments. While attempting to be leaders for renewable energy, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, river barriers, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, ways of life, and culture are threatened. "It's challenging being such a small minority to stand your ground when the justifications are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the language of ecology, but yet it's just striving to find better ways to persist in habits of expenditure."

Personal Struggles

The artist and her kin have themselves clashed with the national administration over its tightening policies on herding. In 2016, Sara's sibling initiated a series of finally failed legal cases over the required reduction of his animals, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara developed a multi-year collection of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal curtain of numerous cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Art as Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression is the exclusive realm in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|