🔗 Share this article

Guests to Tate Modern are familiar to unusual encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, descended down spiral slides, and observed automated sea creatures drifting through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artist commission for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a winding structure modeled after the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or relax on pelts, listening on headphones to community leaders telling tales and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It may sound quirky, but the exhibit pays tribute to a rarely recognized natural marvel: experts have discovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it takes in by eighty degrees, enabling the animal to thrive in harsh Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara says, "creates a perception of inferiority that you as a human being are not superior over nature." The artist is a former writer, writer for kids, and rights advocate, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Perhaps that creates the potential to change your viewpoint or trigger some humility," she continues.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The winding design is among various features in Sara's immersive exhibition showcasing the culture, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi number about 100,000 people spread across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Kola region (an area they call Sápmi). They have experienced discrimination, forced assimilation, and suppression of their language by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi cosmology and creation story, the installation also spotlights the community's struggles associated with the global warming, loss of territory, and external control.

Symbolism in Components

On the long entry slope, there's a soaring, 26-meter sculpture of pelts trapped by electrical wires. It represents a metaphor for the political and economic systems constraining the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this part of the exhibit, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, in which dense layers of ice form as changing weather liquefy and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season nourishment, fungus. The condition is a result of climate change, which is occurring up to much more rapidly in the Arctic than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they hauled containers of food pellets on to the barren Arctic plains to distribute manually. The herd gathered round us, digging the icy ground in vain attempts for vegetative morsels. This costly and labour-intensive method is having a severe impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the choice is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are dying—a number from lack of food, others drowning after sinking in lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. To some extent, the installation is a monument to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

This artwork also emphasizes the sharp difference between the industrial interpretation of electricity as a resource to be exploited for profit and existence and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an natural power in creatures, individuals, and nature. This venue's past as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by regional governments. As they strive to be exemplars for renewable energy, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their traditional territory; the Sámi assert their human rights, ways of life, and culture are endangered. "It's hard being such a small minority to protect your rights when the justifications are based on global sustainability," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the discourse of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find better ways to maintain practices of consumption."

Personal Challenges

She and her kin have themselves clashed with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on herding. A few years ago, Sara's brother initiated a set of unsuccessful court actions over the forced culling of his livestock, ostensibly to stop overgrazing. To back him, Sara created a extended set of creations named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal curtain of 400 animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the entrance.

Art as Activism

For many Sámi, creative work appears the sole domain in which they can be understood by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|