🔗 Share this article

Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, slid down spiral slides, and seen AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this cavernous space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a winding construction based on the expanded inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Once inside, they can meander around or chill out on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors imparting narratives and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It may sound quirky, but the installation pays tribute to a little-known scientific wonder: scientists have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, helping the animal to survive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "generates a sense of insignificance that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." She is a former journalist, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who hails from a pastoral family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that fosters the potential to change your viewpoint or spark some humbleness," she states.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The winding structure is one of several components in Sara's absorbing exhibition honoring the culture, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total about 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've endured discrimination, cultural suppression, and repression of their tongue by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the work also spotlights the community's issues relating to the global warming, loss of territory, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Components

On the lengthy entrance incline, there's a looming, 26-meter structure of reindeer hides trapped by utility lines. It serves as a analogy for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this section of the installation, named Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which solid layers of ice appear as changing weather thaw and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' main cold-season food, moss. This phenomenon is a result of global heating, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they transported trailers of animal nutrition on to the barren Arctic plains to distribute by hand. The reindeer crowded round us, pawing the frozen ground in futility for mossy bits. This expensive and demanding method is having a significant effect on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. But the other option is starvation. As these icy periods become commonplace, reindeer are dying—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after plunging into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the installation is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm transporting the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The installation also underscores the stark divergence between the western view of power as a resource to be utilized for gain and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an natural power in animals, individuals, and nature. Tate Modern's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by regional governments. As they strive to be exemplars for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, river barriers, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their legal protections, incomes, and culture are endangered. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to protect your rights when the reasons are rooted in environmental protection," Sara notes. "Mining practices has adopted the language of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to persist in habits of expenditure."

Personal Conflicts

Sara and her family have personally conflicted with the state authorities over its tightening rules on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a series of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his animals, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. To back him, Sara produced a four-year collection of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a huge drape of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it resides in the entrance.

Art as Activism

For many Sámi, art appears the exclusive sphere in which they can be understood by outsiders. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|