🔗 Share this article

Visitors to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've relaxed under an man-made sun, slid down spiral slides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures hovering through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nasal passages of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes patrons into a labyrinthine construction based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can wander around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders imparting narratives and wisdom.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It might seem whimsical, but the artwork celebrates a little-known natural marvel: researchers have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to endure in extreme Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "creates a perception of inferiority that you as a person are not in control over nature." Sara is a former journalist, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that fosters the chance to change your viewpoint or evoke some humbleness," she adds.

A Celebration to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine design is among various elements in Sara's immersive art project honoring the heritage, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi number roughly 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, cultural suppression, and eradication of their dialect by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the art also draws attention to the people's struggles connected to the global warming, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Symbolism in Elements

At the long entry ramp, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot structure of skins entangled by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the governance and financial structures restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this component of the installation, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, whereby dense sheets of ice appear as varying temperatures liquefy and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, fungus. The condition is a outcome of global heating, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than in other regions.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a icy season and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they carried trailers of food pellets on to the exposed tundra to provide through labor. These animals crowded round us, scratching the icy ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered morsels. This resource-intensive and laborious method is having a severe influence on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the other option is starvation. As goavvi winters become frequent, reindeer are perishing—a number from lack of food, others drowning after plunging into water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. In a sense, the art is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Perspectives

The installation also emphasizes the sharp contrast between the industrial understanding of energy as a asset to be utilized for gain and survival and the Sámi worldview of energy as an inherent power in animals, individuals, and the environment. This venue's history as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by regional governments. In their efforts to be exemplars for clean sources, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, river barriers, and mines on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their legal protections, ways of life, and traditions are threatened. "It's very difficult being such a small minority to stand your ground when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara observes. "Mining practices has appropriated the language of environmentalism, but yet it's just attempting to find better ways to maintain practices of expenditure."

Individual Challenges

She and her family have themselves clashed with the national administration over its ever-stricter regulations on herding. A few years ago, Sara's sibling undertook a sequence of unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his livestock, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara created a extended series of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge drape of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it resides in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For many Sámi, creative work seems the sole sphere in which they can be understood by outsiders. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|