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Guests to Tate Modern are familiar to unexpected displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an artificial sun, descended down spiral slides, and seen automated jellyfish drifting through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nasal cavities of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this immense space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a labyrinthine structure modeled after the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal cavities. Upon entering, they can stroll around or relax on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to Sámi elders telling stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It might sound quirky, but the exhibit celebrates a rarely recognized scientific wonder: experts have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, helping the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "produces a feeling of smallness that you as a person are not in control over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, children's author, and environmental activist, who is from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that fosters the possibility to change your outlook or spark some humbleness," she states.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The winding design is among various components in Sara's absorbing exhibition celebrating the traditions, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count about 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced oppression, cultural suppression, and suppression of their language by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the art also draws attention to the group's struggles associated with the global warming, property rights, and external control.

Metaphor in Components

At the long access incline, there's a towering, 26-metre formation of reindeer hides entangled by electrical wires. It serves as a metaphor for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this part of the exhibit, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, whereby dense coatings of ice form as fluctuating weather liquefy and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter sustenance, moss. Goavvi is a consequence of global heating, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than in other regions.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a icy season and went with Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they hauled containers of animal nutrition on to the barren tundra to dispense through labor. The herd gathered round us, digging the slippery ground in futility for mossy bits. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a severe impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. But the alternative is malnutrition. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are perishing—a number from starvation, others submerging after plunging into water bodies through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the work is a tribute to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The installation also underscores the stark difference between the modern interpretation of power as a asset to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an natural power in animals, humans, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. While attempting to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, river barriers, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their legal protections, incomes, and way of life are threatened. "It's hard being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the rhetoric of ecology, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find better ways to continue habits of use."

Personal Struggles

She and her relatives have personally disagreed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent policies on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of unsuccessful legal cases over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, apparently to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara developed a multi-year collection of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi including a massive curtain of 400 cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it resides in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Activism

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