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Visitors to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, slid down spiral slides, and witnessed robotic sea creatures floating through the air. But this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nose chambers of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a labyrinthine structure inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Once inside, they can stroll around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to tribal seniors imparting tales and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It may sound quirky, but the exhibit pays tribute to a obscure natural marvel: scientists have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it inhales by eighty degrees, helping the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "creates a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." Sara is a former reporter, young adult author, and land defender, who hails from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that fosters the potential to change your viewpoint or evoke some modesty," she continues.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like installation is one of several features in Sara's absorbing exhibition celebrating the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, forced assimilation, and suppression of their tongue by all four nations. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the installation also highlights the group's challenges connected to the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and external control.

Metaphor in Elements

At the lengthy entry slope, there's a towering, 26-metre formation of skins ensnared by utility lines. It represents a analogy for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this section of the artwork, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, in which thick layers of ice appear as changing conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter sustenance, fungus. The condition is a outcome of global heating, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than in other regions.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they transported trailers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to provide by hand. The reindeer surrounded round us, digging the slippery ground in futility for lichen-covered pieces. This expensive and laborious process is having a significant effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the choice is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after plunging into water bodies through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

The installation also emphasizes the clear difference between the western understanding of electricity as a asset to be utilized for profit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an natural life force in animals, humans, and nature. Tate Modern's history as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be leaders for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and culture are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to protect your rights when the reasons are grounded in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the rhetoric of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to continue habits of use."

Family Conflicts

Sara and her kin have personally clashed with the national administration over its ever-stricter policies on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a four-year series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge curtain of numerous reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the the show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entryway.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, art is the only realm in which they can be heard by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|