🔗 Share this article

Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to unexpected encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an artificial sun, slid down spiral slides, and witnessed automated sea creatures floating through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this immense space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a labyrinthine construction based on the expanded interior of a reindeer's nose cavities. Inside, they can wander around or chill out on pelts, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders sharing narratives and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It might seem whimsical, but the artwork pays tribute to a little-known biological feat: scientists have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it breathes in by eighty degrees, enabling the animal to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Scaling the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "produces a sense of insignificance that you as a person are not in control over nature." She is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who comes from a herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that creates the possibility to shift your perspective or spark some humbleness," she adds.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The winding installation is part of a elements in Sara's absorbing exhibition showcasing the heritage, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi total approximately 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They have endured persecution, forced assimilation, and repression of their tongue by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the heart of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the installation also highlights the community's struggles associated with the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and external control.

Symbolism in Materials

At the extended entrance incline, there's a towering, 26-metre structure of reindeer hides ensnared by power and light cables. It represents a metaphor for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part spiritual ascent, this component of the exhibit, named Goavve-, relates to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein dense coatings of ice develop as fluctuating temperatures thaw and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season food, fungus. This phenomenon is a consequence of global heating, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than globally.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a severe cold period and joined Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they carried containers of supplementary feed on to the exposed frozen landscape to provide by hand. The herd gathered round us, digging the icy ground in vain for mossy pieces. This resource-intensive and demanding procedure is having a drastic influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. Yet the choice is death. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are dying—some from starvation, others suffocating after sinking in streams through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the work is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Belief Systems

The sculpture also highlights the sharp contrast between the industrial understanding of energy as a asset to be harnessed for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an natural essence in creatures, people, and the environment. Tate Modern's past as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi see as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. In their efforts to be leaders for clean sources, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, river barriers, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi assert their human rights, ways of life, and way of life are threatened. "It's challenging being such a limited population to stand your ground when the reasons are rooted in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Extractivism has appropriated the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just aiming to find alternative ways to continue patterns of expenditure."

Personal Struggles

The artist and her relatives have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its increasingly stringent regulations on herding. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a series of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara created a extended series of creations called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal drape of four hundred cranial remains, which was shown at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Art as Activism

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression is the exclusive domain in which they can be understood by people of other nations. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|