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Visitors to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an artificial sun, descended down helter skelters, and witnessed robotic jellyfish drifting through the air. But this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose passages of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this huge space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a labyrinthine structure inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can wander around or chill out on reindeer hides, listening on earphones to tribal seniors imparting stories and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It could seem playful, but the artwork celebrates a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the creature to thrive in harsh Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "produces a perception of insignificance that you as a individual are not in control over nature." She is a former journalist, writer for kids, and land defender, who hails from a herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that generates the potential to change your viewpoint or evoke some humility," she continues.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine design is among various elements in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the culture, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced discrimination, cultural suppression, and suppression of their language by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the art also draws attention to the community's issues associated with the global warming, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Meaning in Elements

Along the lengthy entry slope, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot sculpture of reindeer hides ensnared by electrical wires. It serves as a analogy for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this section of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which dense sheets of ice form as fluctuating conditions melt and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, fungus. Goavvi is a result of climate change, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than elsewhere.

A few years back, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and joined Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they hauled trailers of animal nutrition on to the exposed Arctic plains to dispense manually. The reindeer surrounded round us, digging the slippery ground in vain for lichen-covered pieces. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive method is having a severe impact on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the alternative is starvation. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are dying—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after sinking in streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the art is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The sculpture also underscores the stark contrast between the industrial understanding of electricity as a asset to be utilized for profit and survival and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an natural power in creatures, individuals, and the environment. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by regional governments. As they strive to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi assert their legal protections, ways of life, and traditions are endangered. "It's hard being such a limited population to stand your ground when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find better ways to continue practices of expenditure."

Family Conflicts

Sara and her relatives have personally disagreed with the national administration over its ever-stricter policies on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a set of finally failed legal cases over the required reduction of his animals, apparently to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara developed a extended set of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge drape of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

Among the community, art appears the only realm in which they can be understood by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|