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Attendees to Tate Modern are familiar to surprising encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have basked under an artificial sun, glided down amusement rides, and observed automated sea creatures drifting through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose passages of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this immense space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a winding structure inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on earphones to tribal seniors telling stories and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It might seem quirky, but the artwork honors a obscure biological feat: researchers have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to endure in inhospitable Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "creates a perception of inferiority that you as a individual are not superior over nature." She is a ex- journalist, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who comes from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that creates the possibility to change your perspective or evoke some modesty," she continues.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The winding structure is one of several elements in Sara's absorbing exhibition celebrating the culture, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They have faced persecution, cultural suppression, and eradication of their dialect by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the art also spotlights the people's issues relating to the environmental emergency, property rights, and colonialism.

Meaning in Elements

At the lengthy entry ramp, there's a towering, 26-meter structure of reindeer hides entangled by electrical wires. It can be read as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this section of the artwork, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein thick coatings of ice form as fluctuating conditions liquefy and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key winter nourishment, fungus. This phenomenon is a result of climate change, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than in other regions.

A few years back, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they transported trailers of animal nutrition on to the exposed frozen landscape to distribute through labor. The herd surrounded round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered pieces. This resource-intensive and laborious procedure is having a significant influence on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the alternative is malnutrition. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after plunging into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the art is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

The sculpture also highlights the clear contrast between the western understanding of energy as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of life force as an inherent life force in animals, people, and the environment. The gallery's past as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be standard bearers for renewable energy, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and way of life are threatened. "It's hard being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the arguments are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Extractivism has adopted the language of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find alternative ways to continue habits of use."

Personal Struggles

She and her kin have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its tightening rules on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's sibling initiated a sequence of finally failed court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, apparently to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara produced a multi-year set of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive drape of numerous cranial remains, which was displayed at the the show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it hangs in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Awareness

For many Sámi, art appears the exclusive realm in which they can be listened to by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|