Unveiling the Scent of Apprehension: The Sámi Artist Revamps Tate's Turbine Hall with Reindeer Themed Artwork

Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to surprising experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an artificial sun, glided down spiral slides, and witnessed automated jellyfish hovering through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal cavities of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this huge space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a maze-like construction based on the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or relax on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to community leaders telling narratives and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It might appear playful, but the exhibit celebrates a obscure natural marvel: experts have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it inhales by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "creates a sense of smallness that you as a person are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that creates the chance to change your outlook or spark some humbleness," she continues.

A Tribute to Indigenous Heritage

The maze-like structure is among various features in Sara's engaging commission honoring the heritage, science, and worldview of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They have endured persecution, cultural suppression, and suppression of their dialect by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the work also spotlights the community's issues relating to the environmental emergency, property rights, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Elements

On the extended entry slope, there's a soaring, 26-metre sculpture of skins trapped by utility lines. It represents a symbol for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this component of the exhibit, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, in which solid sheets of ice form as changing conditions liquefy and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, fungus. The condition is a outcome of climate change, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than in other regions.

Previously, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and accompanied Sámi pastoralists on their motorized sleds in freezing temperatures as they carried carts of supplementary feed on to the exposed tundra to dispense manually. These animals surrounded round us, pawing the frozen ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered morsels. This expensive and laborious method is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the alternative is starvation. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are dying—some from hunger, others drowning after plunging into streams through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the art is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

The installation also underscores the sharp difference between the western understanding of energy as a commodity to be harnessed for gain and survival and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an innate life force in animals, humans, and land. The gallery's history as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, river barriers, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi assert their legal protections, livelihoods, and culture are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the justifications are rooted in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has adopted the language of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just striving to find better ways to persist in practices of consumption."

Individual Struggles

She and her family have personally conflicted with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent regulations on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's sibling embarked on a series of unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his animals, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara developed a extended collection of creations called Pile O'Sápmi including a massive screen of four hundred cranial remains, which was shown at the the event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the national institution, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Art as Activism

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