Delving into the Aroma of Anxiety: The Sámi Artist Revamps The Gallery's Exhibition Space with Arctic Deer Themed Exhibit

Guests to Tate Modern are used to unusual encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've basked under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and observed AI-powered jellyfish drifting through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a labyrinthine design modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose airways. Upon entering, they can stroll around or unwind on skins, listening on headphones to tribal seniors sharing narratives and wisdom.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It may sound quirky, but the artwork celebrates a rarely recognized biological feat: scientists have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the incoming air it inhales by 80°C, enabling the animal to thrive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "generates a feeling of insignificance that you as a individual are not in control over nature." The artist is a former writer, young adult author, and rights advocate, who is from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that creates the chance to shift your outlook or evoke some humility," she continues.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine design is one of several elements in Sara's immersive exhibition honoring the culture, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi number approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They have faced persecution, forced assimilation, and repression of their tongue by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the work also highlights the people's struggles associated with the climate crisis, property rights, and external control.

Symbolism in Materials

At the lengthy entry incline, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot sculpture of skins entangled by utility lines. It can be read as a symbol for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this component of the installation, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein dense sheets of ice form as changing conditions melt and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary winter nourishment, moss. This phenomenon is a consequence of global heating, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than elsewhere.

Previously, I met with Sara in a remote town during a icy season and joined Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they transported carts of food pellets on to the barren Arctic plains to distribute through labor. The reindeer gathered round us, scratching the slippery ground in vain for vegetative morsels. This expensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a drastic influence on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the other option is starvation. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from lack of food, others submerging after falling into streams through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the art is a memorial to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

This artwork also emphasizes the sharp divergence between the industrial understanding of electricity as a commodity to be utilized for profit and existence and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an natural power in creatures, humans, and the environment. The gallery's history as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. As they strive to be standard bearers for sustainable power, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, river barriers, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their legal protections, ways of life, and culture are at risk. "It's challenging being such a limited population to defend yourself when the justifications are grounded in saving the world," Sara comments. "Mining practices has appropriated the language of environmentalism, but still it's just attempting to find better ways to maintain patterns of use."

Personal Challenges

Sara and her family have personally conflicted with the state authorities over its ever-stricter regulations on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's sibling undertook a sequence of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his animals, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a four-year collection of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive curtain of 400 animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it resides in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Awareness

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