Exploring the Smell of Apprehension: Máret Ánne Sara Reimagines Tate's Turbine Hall with Reindeer Themed Exhibit

Attendees to Tate Modern are used to unexpected displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They've basked under an man-made sun, glided down helter skelters, and witnessed robotic sea creatures floating through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal cavities of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this huge space—developed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a labyrinthine design modeled after the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to Sámi elders telling stories and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why the nose? It may appear whimsical, but the installation celebrates a rarely recognized scientific wonder: scientists have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, helping the creature to survive in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "produces a sense of insignificance that you as a person are not superior over nature." Sara is a former journalist, children's author, and rights advocate, who comes from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Possibly that generates the possibility to alter your perspective or spark some humility," she states.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The winding installation is part of a elements in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the culture, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've endured oppression, cultural suppression, and eradication of their tongue by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the work also draws attention to the community's issues connected to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and external control.

Meaning in Materials

At the lengthy access ramp, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot formation of skins trapped by utility lines. It represents a analogy for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this component of the installation, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, wherein solid sheets of ice develop as varying conditions thaw and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, fungus. This phenomenon is a result of global heating, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Far North than globally.

Previously, I met with Sara in a remote town during a icy season and joined Sámi pastoralists on their snowmobiles in biting cold as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to provide by hand. These animals gathered round us, digging the slippery ground in vain attempts for vegetative morsels. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive method is having a drastic impact on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. Yet the other option is death. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are dying—a number from starvation, others suffocating after plunging into streams through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the work is a tribute to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

The sculpture also emphasizes the clear contrast between the western interpretation of electricity as a resource to be harnessed for profit and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of life force as an natural life force in animals, humans, and nature. This venue's legacy as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their human rights, incomes, and culture are endangered. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the arguments are grounded in environmental protection," Sara observes. "Mining practices has adopted the rhetoric of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to continue habits of use."

Family Struggles

The artist and her kin have themselves clashed with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter policies on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a series of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his herd, apparently to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara created a four-year series of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal screen of numerous animal bones, which was shown at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entrance.

The Role of Art in Activism

For many Sámi, art appears the sole sphere in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|