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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to surprising encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an artificial sun, descended down spiral slides, and witnessed automated jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this huge space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a labyrinthine design modeled after the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal airways. Once inside, they can stroll around or chill out on pelts, listening on headphones to community leaders sharing stories and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It may appear quirky, but the installation honors a rarely recognized natural marvel: experts have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it breathes in by eighty degrees, enabling the creature to thrive in inhospitable Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "creates a feeling of inferiority that you as a human being are not in control over nature." Sara is a former writer, young adult author, and land defender, who hails from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that generates the potential to shift your perspective or spark some humility," she adds.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The winding structure is among various features in Sara's immersive exhibition honoring the traditions, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They have endured persecution, cultural suppression, and repression of their tongue by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the work also draws attention to the group's issues connected to the global warming, property rights, and external control.

Symbolism in Materials

On the extended entry incline, there's a soaring, 26-metre sculpture of skins entangled by utility lines. It serves as a symbol for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this section of the artwork, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, wherein solid sheets of ice appear as varying weather liquefy and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter nourishment, lichen. The condition is a consequence of global heating, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Far North than in other regions.

Previously, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in freezing temperatures as they hauled trailers of food pellets on to the exposed frozen landscape to distribute manually. The reindeer surrounded round us, pawing the frozen ground in vain for vegetative bits. This costly and labour-intensive process is having a significant impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. But the choice is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are perishing—a number from starvation, others submerging after plunging into water bodies through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the art is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The installation also emphasizes the sharp divergence between the industrial interpretation of energy as a asset to be utilized for gain and survival and the Sámi worldview of life force as an natural essence in animals, humans, and the environment. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be exemplars for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, river barriers, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and culture are at risk. "It's hard being such a small minority to defend yourself when the justifications are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Extractivism has co-opted the language of environmentalism, but still it's just aiming to find alternative ways to maintain practices of consumption."

Personal Challenges

The artist and her relatives have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter policies on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a set of unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his herd, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara developed a multi-year collection of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive screen of 400 cranial remains, which was displayed at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Awareness

Among the community, creative work appears the only realm in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|