Delving into this Smell of Apprehension: The Sámi Artist Revamps Tate's Exhibition Space with Reindeer Themed Installation
Guests to the renowned gallery are accustomed to surprising experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They've basked under an simulated sun, descended down helter skelters, and observed AI-powered jellyfish drifting through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose cavities of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a maze-like structure inspired by the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. 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 seem whimsical, but the installation celebrates a rarely recognized natural marvel: experts have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it inhales by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to endure in extreme Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "creates a sense of insignificance that you as a human being are not superior over nature." She is a ex- journalist, children's author, and environmental activist, who hails from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that fosters the possibility to shift your outlook or spark some humbleness," she continues.
A Celebration to Sámi Culture
The winding design is part of a components in Sara's engaging art project showcasing the culture, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They have faced persecution, integration policies, and suppression of their dialect by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also highlights the people's challenges connected to the global warming, property rights, and colonialism.
Meaning in Materials
On the long entrance incline, there's a looming, 26-meter sculpture of skins trapped by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the societal frameworks limiting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the installation, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, whereby solid coatings of ice develop as varying conditions melt and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary cold-season food, moss. This phenomenon is a outcome of global heating, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Far North than elsewhere.
Three years ago, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a goavvi winter and went with Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they transported carts of animal nutrition on to the barren tundra to dispense through labor. The reindeer crowded round us, scratching the icy ground in futility for mossy pieces. This expensive and demanding method is having a significant effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. However the alternative is death. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are succumbing—some from hunger, others submerging after plunging into streams through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the work is a tribute to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.
Contrasting Worldviews
The sculpture also emphasizes the stark divergence between the industrial understanding of energy as a asset to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an natural life force 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 eco-imperialism by regional governments. As they strive to be exemplars for renewable energy, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and culture are threatened. "It's hard being such a small minority to stand your ground when the justifications are based on saving the world," Sara notes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the rhetoric of ecology, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find alternative ways to continue practices of consumption."
Family Struggles
Sara and her kin have personally disagreed with the national administration over its increasingly stringent policies on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother undertook a sequence of unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his animals, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara produced a extended set of creations called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive screen of numerous animal bones, which was shown at the 2017 show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entrance.
Art as Advocacy
For many Sámi, creative work seems the exclusive sphere in which they can be listened to by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|
