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Attendees to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unusual displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an artificial sun, glided down amusement rides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a winding design based on the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose airways. Upon entering, they can stroll around or unwind on skins, listening on earphones to tribal seniors telling narratives and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It could sound whimsical, but the installation pays tribute to a rarely recognized natural marvel: researchers have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "creates a feeling of insignificance that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." The artist is a former writer, children's author, and rights advocate, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that generates the potential to alter your viewpoint or evoke some humbleness," she continues.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine structure is part of a elements in Sara's immersive exhibition showcasing the traditions, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced persecution, cultural suppression, and eradication of their dialect by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the work also spotlights the community's issues connected to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and external control.

Symbolism in Elements

At the lengthy access ramp, there's a soaring, 26-metre formation of pelts entangled by utility lines. It can be read as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part spiritual ascent, this section of the exhibit, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid coatings of ice form as varying conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season nourishment, moss. This phenomenon is a consequence of global heating, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than in other regions.

Previously, I visited Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they carried trailers of supplementary feed on to the exposed frozen landscape to dispense by hand. The reindeer crowded round us, scratching the slippery ground in vain for mossy pieces. This expensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a severe influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after sinking in streams through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the installation is a monument to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The sculpture also highlights the stark difference between the industrial interpretation of energy as a resource to be utilized for gain and existence and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an inherent life force in creatures, people, and nature. Tate Modern's history as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, water power facilities, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their human rights, ways of life, and traditions are threatened. "It's challenging being such a small minority to protect your rights when the reasons are rooted in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Mining practices has adopted the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just attempting to find better ways to continue practices of consumption."

Individual Struggles

She and her kin have themselves disagreed with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent regulations on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's sibling undertook a series of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara created a multi-year series of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal drape of numerous animal bones, which was shown at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it resides in the lobby.

Creative Expression as Awareness

Among the community, creative work appears the exclusive sphere in which they can be heard by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|