🔗 Share this article

Guests to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, glided down amusement rides, and witnessed AI-powered jellyfish floating through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nose passages of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this immense space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like design based on the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Once inside, they can wander around or unwind on skins, listening on headphones to tribal seniors sharing tales and knowledge.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It may appear quirky, but the exhibit pays tribute to a rarely recognized scientific wonder: scientists have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, helping the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a feeling of inferiority that you as a human being are not superior over nature." The artist is a former writer, children's author, and rights advocate, who comes from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that generates the chance to change your outlook or spark some humility," she states.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The maze-like structure is one of several components in Sara's immersive exhibition showcasing the heritage, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They've faced discrimination, forced assimilation, and eradication of their tongue by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the installation also spotlights the group's issues associated with the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and external control.

Meaning in Components

On the lengthy entry ramp, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot formation of pelts ensnared by electrical wires. It can be read as a metaphor for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this part of the exhibit, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein dense sheets of ice form as fluctuating conditions liquefy and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' main cold-season food, fungus. The condition is a consequence of planetary warming, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Far North 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 motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they carried trailers of animal nutrition on to the exposed frozen landscape to provide by hand. These animals surrounded round us, digging the icy ground in futility for mossy pieces. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive procedure is having a significant effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. But the alternative is death. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from lack of food, others suffocating after plunging into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the art is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The installation also underscores the sharp difference between the industrial understanding of energy as a resource to be utilized for gain and existence and the Sámi worldview of energy as an inherent essence in creatures, people, and land. Tate Modern's past as a coal and oil power station is linked with this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be leaders for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, water power facilities, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and traditions are at risk. "It's hard being such a limited population to protect your rights when the reasons are rooted in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Mining practices has co-opted the discourse of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just striving to find more suitable ways to maintain practices of consumption."

Individual Conflicts

The artist and her family have personally conflicted with the state authorities over its tightening policies on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's brother initiated a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his animals, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara developed a multi-year series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal drape of four hundred cranial remains, which was displayed at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, creative work is the sole domain in which they can be listened to by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|