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Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, glided down spiral slides, and observed automated sea creatures hovering through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal cavities of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this huge space—developed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a labyrinthine design inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Inside, they can wander around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to Sámi elders imparting tales and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It could seem whimsical, but the artwork celebrates a little-known biological feat: scientists have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by 80°C, helping the creature to thrive in inhospitable Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara says, "creates a feeling of smallness that you as a individual are not superior over nature." Sara is a former writer, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that fosters the possibility to shift your outlook or spark some humbleness," she adds.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The maze-like installation is one of several components in Sara's immersive commission showcasing the culture, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi total about 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They've faced discrimination, forced assimilation, and repression of their tongue by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi cosmology and founding narrative, the art also draws attention to the people's struggles associated with the climate crisis, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Materials

At the long entrance incline, there's a towering, 26-metre formation of pelts entangled by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this section of the exhibit, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an severe climatic event, wherein solid sheets of ice appear as varying conditions liquefy and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' main winter sustenance, lichen. This phenomenon is a result of planetary warming, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Polar region than in other regions.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and accompanied Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they carried trailers of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to provide by hand. The herd crowded round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain for mossy bits. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive process is having a significant influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. However the other option is malnutrition. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are dying—a number from hunger, others suffocating after sinking in lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the installation is a tribute to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The installation also underscores the sharp divergence between the modern view of power as a resource to be exploited for profit and survival and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an natural life force in creatures, humans, and land. Tate Modern's history as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by regional governments. While attempting to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their legal protections, ways of life, and culture are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the reasons are rooted in saving the world," Sara observes. "Mining practices has appropriated the rhetoric of environmentalism, but still it's just aiming to find better ways to maintain patterns of expenditure."

Family Challenges

The artist and her relatives have personally clashed with the national administration over its tightening rules on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's sibling undertook a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his animals, apparently to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a extended set of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal curtain of four hundred cranial remains, which was displayed at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

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