Unveiling the Smell of Anxiety: The Sámi Artist Reimagines The Gallery's Exhibition Space with Reindeer Themed Artwork

Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an man-made sun, glided down helter skelters, and seen AI-powered jellyfish drifting through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this immense space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a winding construction modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Inside, they can wander around or chill out on skins, listening on earphones to community leaders imparting narratives and insights.

Why the Nose?

What's the focus on the nose? It might appear playful, but the artwork honors a little-known natural marvel: experts have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it takes in by eighty degrees, helping the creature to thrive in inhospitable Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "produces a perception of insignificance that you as a human being are not in control over nature." She is a former journalist, young adult author, and rights advocate, who is from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that fosters the potential to alter your outlook or spark some humility," she states.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The maze-like installation is among various features in Sara's engaging exhibition honoring the traditions, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, integration policies, and eradication of their tongue by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the work also draws attention to the group's struggles connected to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Materials

Along the lengthy entrance incline, there's a looming, 26-meter formation of skins ensnared by power and light cables. It can be read as a metaphor for the societal frameworks limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this section of the exhibit, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, whereby dense coatings of ice appear as varying conditions liquefy and ice over the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, moss. Goavvi is a outcome of climate change, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Far North than in other regions.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they carried containers of food pellets on to the barren tundra to distribute by hand. The herd crowded round us, digging the icy ground in vain for mossy bits. This costly and demanding procedure is having a severe impact on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the choice is death. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are perishing—a number from starvation, others drowning after plunging into water bodies through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the work is a monument to them. "With the layering of materials, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

This artwork also highlights the sharp divergence between the industrial understanding of power as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and survival and the Sámi worldview of energy as an inherent power in animals, people, and the environment. The gallery's legacy as a industrial facility is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi see as green colonialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be exemplars for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and culture are at risk. "It's hard being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the reasons are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Mining practices has co-opted the rhetoric of sustainability, but still it's just striving to find better ways to continue habits of use."

Individual Conflicts

The artist and her kin have personally clashed with the national administration over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's brother embarked on a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his animals, apparently to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a four-year set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi including a huge screen of 400 reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the entrance.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, art is the exclusive domain in which they can be heard by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|