Delving into this Smell of Apprehension: The Sámi Artist Transforms The Gallery's Exhibition Space with Reindeer Inspired Exhibit
Guests to Tate Modern are used to surprising displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an simulated sun, slid down spiral slides, and witnessed AI-powered jellyfish hovering through the air. But this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nose chambers of a reindeer. The latest artistic project for this immense space—designed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a winding design modeled after the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can wander around or relax on skins, listening on earphones to tribal seniors imparting tales and knowledge.
Why the Nose?
Why choose the nasal structure? It could sound whimsical, but the exhibit honors a little-known natural marvel: researchers have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it inhales by 80°C, allowing the animal to survive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "creates a sense of smallness that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." Sara is a former writer, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who is from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that creates the potential to alter your outlook or spark some humility," she states.
A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage
The maze-like structure is among various elements in Sara's absorbing commission showcasing the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've experienced persecution, cultural suppression, and suppression of their dialect by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the art also spotlights the group's issues relating to the climate crisis, land dispossession, and imperialism.
Metaphor in Elements
At the lengthy entrance slope, there's a looming, 26-meter structure of reindeer hides entangled by electrical wires. It can be read as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this section of the installation, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby dense coatings of ice form as changing temperatures thaw and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, moss. The condition is a outcome of global heating, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Far North than elsewhere.
Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they carried trailers of food pellets on to the exposed Arctic plains to provide through labor. These animals surrounded round us, digging the slippery ground in vain attempts for vegetative morsels. This expensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a drastic influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the other option is starvation. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are succumbing—some from starvation, others suffocating after plunging into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the art is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.
Opposing Perspectives
The sculpture also highlights the clear divergence between the modern interpretation of electricity as a resource to be exploited for profit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of life force as an inherent power in animals, individuals, and the environment. The gallery's past as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be exemplars for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their legal protections, ways of life, and traditions are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the arguments are based on environmental protection," Sara comments. "Extractivism has adopted the language of sustainability, but still it's just aiming to find better ways to continue practices of use."
Personal Conflicts
The artist and her family have personally disagreed with the national administration over its ever-stricter policies on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara developed a extended collection of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi including a massive screen of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it resides in the entryway.
Art as Advocacy
For numerous Indigenous people, art seems the exclusive domain in which they can be heard by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|
