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Guests to Tate Modern are used to unexpected encounters in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have basked under an simulated sun, descended down spiral slides, and witnessed automated sea creatures drifting through the air. But this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose chambers of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this cavernous space—created by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a maze-like construction based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or relax on pelts, tuning in on earphones to community leaders imparting narratives and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It might sound quirky, but the artwork celebrates a obscure scientific wonder: experts have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by eighty degrees, helping the creature to thrive in harsh Arctic temperatures. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "produces a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not in control over nature." The artist is a former reporter, children's author, and rights advocate, who comes from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Possibly that creates the potential to change your perspective or evoke some humbleness," she continues.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The labyrinthine structure is part of a elements in Sara's engaging art project celebrating the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count about 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have endured oppression, integration policies, and eradication of their language by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the work also draws attention to the community's struggles connected to the global warming, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Meaning in Elements

At the extended entrance slope, there's a towering, 26-metre sculpture of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It represents a symbol for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this part of the installation, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby thick coatings of ice appear as fluctuating temperatures melt and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' main cold-season nourishment, lichen. This phenomenon is a result of climate change, which is taking place up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they transported carts of supplementary feed on to the exposed frozen landscape to provide manually. These animals gathered round us, digging the icy ground in vain attempts for mossy pieces. This costly and laborious process is having a severe impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. However the alternative is malnutrition. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after plunging into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the installation is a monument to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The installation also underscores the sharp contrast between the industrial view of energy as a commodity to be harnessed for profit and survival and the Sámi worldview of vitality as an innate life force in animals, humans, and nature. The gallery's past as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be exemplars for clean sources, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and way of life are endangered. "It's hard being such a small minority to defend yourself when the justifications are based on saving the world," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has adopted the discourse of ecology, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find better ways to persist in habits of use."

Individual Challenges

Sara and her kin have personally conflicted with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his animals, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara produced a extended set of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi including a huge drape of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the the show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it hangs in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Activism

For many Sámi, creative work appears the sole domain in which they can be heard by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|