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Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an man-made sun, descended down amusement rides, and witnessed automated sea creatures floating through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this immense space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a maze-like design modeled after the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or relax on pelts, tuning in on earphones to tribal seniors imparting stories and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It may sound quirky, but the installation honors a obscure scientific wonder: researchers have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it inhales by eighty degrees, enabling the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "produces a feeling of inferiority that you as a human being are not superior over nature." The artist is a former reporter, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who hails from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that generates the possibility to shift your viewpoint or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The winding structure is among various features in Sara's absorbing exhibition honoring the culture, science, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They've experienced oppression, forced assimilation, and repression of their dialect by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the art also highlights the group's issues associated with the environmental emergency, property rights, and imperialism.

Meaning in Components

Along the extended entry incline, there's a looming, 26-metre sculpture of pelts entangled by utility lines. It serves as a symbol for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this component of the artwork, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, wherein solid sheets of ice appear as fluctuating weather thaw and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary cold-season food, fungus. This phenomenon is a consequence of global heating, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than in other regions.

Previously, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and joined Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they hauled carts of animal nutrition on to the exposed Arctic plains to distribute by hand. The herd crowded round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain attempts for mossy morsels. This expensive and laborious process is having a significant influence on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. Yet the alternative is death. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after falling into water bodies through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the installation is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The installation also underscores the sharp divergence between the western interpretation of electricity as a resource to be exploited for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi worldview of life force as an natural power in animals, humans, and land. This venue's past as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, river barriers, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and culture are threatened. "It's hard being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has adopted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to maintain patterns of expenditure."

Personal Challenges

Sara and her relatives have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its ever-stricter policies on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's sibling undertook a series of unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, apparently to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a four-year set of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive screen of 400 animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Activism

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