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Attendees to Tate Modern are used to unusual displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an simulated sun, slid down spiral slides, and observed automated sea creatures drifting through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nose cavities of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this huge space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a labyrinthine design inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to tribal seniors imparting narratives and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It may sound quirky, but the artwork celebrates a obscure scientific wonder: experts have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it inhales by 80°C, helping the creature to survive in extreme Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "produces a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who hails from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that creates the potential to alter your perspective or evoke some modesty," she continues.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The winding installation is among various features in Sara's absorbing art project celebrating the culture, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They have experienced persecution, forced assimilation, and eradication of their tongue by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the work also draws attention to the community's challenges relating to the global warming, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Materials

Along the lengthy access slope, there's a looming, 26-metre structure of reindeer hides ensnared by utility lines. It serves as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this part of the exhibit, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which solid coatings of ice appear as fluctuating temperatures thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' main winter food, moss. This phenomenon is a outcome of planetary warming, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than in other regions.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and accompanied Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they hauled trailers of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to dispense by hand. The reindeer crowded round us, digging the frozen ground in futility for lichen-covered morsels. This expensive and labour-intensive process is having a drastic influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the choice is starvation. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others drowning after plunging into lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the installation is a monument to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

This artwork also emphasizes the stark difference between the western interpretation of electricity as a asset to be utilized for profit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an inherent life force in creatures, humans, and nature. This venue's history as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by regional governments. As they strive to be standard bearers for clean sources, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, river barriers, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and traditions are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to stand your ground when the justifications are based on global sustainability," Sara observes. "Mining practices has co-opted the discourse of sustainability, but yet it's just aiming to find alternative ways to continue practices of expenditure."

Personal Challenges

Sara and her relatives have themselves clashed with the national administration over its tightening regulations on herding. In 2016, Sara's brother embarked on a series of finally failed lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, apparently to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a multi-year set of creations called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge screen of 400 reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression is the only sphere in which they can be understood by outsiders. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|