Delving into the Smell of Apprehension: The Sámi Artist Reimagines The Gallery's Turbine Hall with Reindeer Influenced Exhibit

Guests to Tate Modern are accustomed to unusual encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an simulated sun, descended down spiral slides, and observed automated sea creatures hovering through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal cavities of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this huge space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a winding structure modeled after the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal airways. Inside, they can stroll around or unwind on pelts, listening on headphones to Sámi elders imparting narratives and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It might seem quirky, but the artwork pays tribute to a little-known scientific wonder: researchers have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, helping the animal to survive in extreme Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "produces a perception of smallness that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." The artist is a former writer, young adult author, and rights advocate, who is from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that creates the possibility to change your perspective or trigger some humility," she continues.

A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage

The winding structure is among various elements in Sara's engaging art project honoring the traditions, science, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total about 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an territory they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, forced assimilation, and eradication of their dialect by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the art also highlights the community's struggles associated with the global warming, property rights, and imperialism.

Meaning in Elements

At the lengthy entry ramp, there's a soaring, 26-metre structure of skins trapped by electrical wires. It serves as a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this part of the installation, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, wherein thick sheets of ice develop as varying temperatures thaw and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' main winter sustenance, lichen. Goavvi is a consequence of climate change, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than in other regions.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and went with Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they hauled containers of animal nutrition on to the barren tundra to dispense by hand. The reindeer gathered round us, pawing the icy ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered morsels. This costly and demanding method is having a significant effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. But the alternative is starvation. When such conditions become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from hunger, others submerging after plunging into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the art is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

The installation also underscores the clear difference between the industrial understanding of energy as a resource to be harnessed for profit and survival and the Sámi outlook of energy as an innate power in creatures, humans, and land. Tate Modern's past as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be leaders for renewable energy, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, river barriers, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and way of life are threatened. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the justifications are grounded in global sustainability," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the language of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find alternative ways to persist in practices of consumption."

Personal Challenges

The artist and her relatives have themselves conflicted with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent regulations on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's sibling initiated a sequence of unsuccessful court actions over the required reduction of his animals, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara created a four-year series of creations named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal curtain of 400 reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017 art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

For numerous Indigenous people, art seems the only realm in which they can be listened to by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|