Delving into the Scent of Apprehension: Máret Ánne Sara Revamps The Gallery's Exhibition Space with Reindeer Themed Installation

Visitors to Tate Modern are familiar to unexpected experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, slid down spiral slides, and observed robotic jellyfish hovering through the air. However this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose passages of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a winding structure inspired by the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can stroll around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders telling tales and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

What's the focus on the nose? It could seem whimsical, but the exhibit celebrates a obscure biological feat: experts have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to survive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "produces a sense of smallness that you as a person are not in control over nature." She is a ex- journalist, young adult author, and land defender, who hails from a herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that fosters the possibility to shift your perspective or spark some modesty," she continues.

A Tribute to Traditional Ways

The winding structure is among various features in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the heritage, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count about 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have experienced discrimination, cultural suppression, and repression of their dialect by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the core of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the art also draws attention to the community's issues connected to the climate crisis, land dispossession, and external control.

Metaphor in Elements

On the lengthy entrance slope, there's a towering, 26-metre formation of skins ensnared by electrical wires. It can be read as a metaphor for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this part of the artwork, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, whereby solid layers of ice develop as fluctuating temperatures melt and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season food, fungus. This phenomenon is a consequence of global heating, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Arctic than in other regions.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in a remote town during a icy season and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they transported carts of food pellets on to the wind-scoured tundra to provide manually. The herd gathered round us, pawing the slippery ground in futility for vegetative pieces. This resource-intensive and laborious method is having a severe impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. But the other option is malnutrition. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are succumbing—a number from lack of food, others drowning after falling into streams through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the art is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

This artwork also emphasizes the sharp contrast between the western interpretation of energy as a commodity to be harnessed for profit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an natural power in creatures, individuals, and land. Tate Modern's past as a fossil fuel plant is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, water power facilities, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their human rights, ways of life, and way of life are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a tiny group to protect your rights when the reasons are based on saving the world," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the language of ecology, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to persist in practices of use."

Individual Conflicts

Sara and her relatives have personally clashed with the national administration over its increasingly stringent rules on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's brother embarked on a series of finally failed court actions over the forced culling of his livestock, supposedly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara produced a four-year collection of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal drape of four hundred cranial remains, which was displayed at the the show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the public gallery, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Art as Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, art appears the only sphere in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|