Unveiling the Scent of Apprehension: The Sámi Artist Reimagines The Gallery's Exhibition Space with Arctic Deer Influenced Artwork

Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to surprising experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, slid down amusement rides, and witnessed automated sea creatures hovering through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nose passages of a reindeer. The current creative installation for this immense space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a maze-like construction modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Once inside, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, tuning in on earphones to community leaders imparting narratives and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It may appear quirky, but the artwork celebrates a obscure scientific wonder: scientists have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it breathes in by 80°C, enabling the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "creates a sense of insignificance that you as a human being are not superior over nature." She is a ex- writer, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that fosters the possibility to change your viewpoint or spark some humility," she continues.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The maze-like design is one of several features in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the traditions, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've endured persecution, cultural suppression, and suppression of their language by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the core of the Sámi cosmology and founding narrative, the installation also spotlights the community's struggles relating to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and external control.

Meaning in Components

Along the extended entry ramp, there's a soaring, 26-meter sculpture of pelts trapped by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, wherein thick coatings of ice appear as varying conditions liquefy and refreeze the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary winter food, fungus. The condition is a consequence of climate change, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than in other regions.

Previously, I traveled to see Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they hauled containers of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to provide through labor. The herd surrounded round us, pawing the frozen ground in futility for vegetative morsels. This costly and laborious procedure is having a significant impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the alternative is starvation. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others submerging after plunging into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the installation is a tribute to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The sculpture also underscores the clear divergence between the western interpretation of electricity as a resource to be harnessed for profit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an innate power in animals, people, and nature. Tate Modern's past as a coal and oil power station is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. While attempting to be exemplars for sustainable power, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their human rights, incomes, and way of life are threatened. "It's hard being such a limited population to protect your rights when the arguments are based on environmental protection," Sara comments. "Extractivism has adopted the language of ecology, but still it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to maintain practices of expenditure."

Individual Challenges

Sara and her family have themselves clashed with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a series of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, supposedly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara developed a extended set of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi including a massive drape of numerous cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it resides in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, art appears the sole realm in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|