Unveiling this Smell of Anxiety: The Sámi Artist Transforms The Gallery's Exhibition Space with Reindeer Inspired Artwork

Guests to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, descended down spiral slides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures hovering through the air. But this marks the initial time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal chambers of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a winding structure modeled after the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on reindeer hides, listening on earphones to tribal seniors telling tales and knowledge.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It could sound whimsical, but the artwork pays tribute to a obscure biological feat: researchers have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it inhales by 80°C, enabling the animal to endure in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "generates a sense of insignificance that you as a person are not superior over nature." Sara is a former writer, children's author, and land defender, who comes from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that generates the chance to alter your outlook or evoke some modesty," she continues.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine installation is part of a components in Sara's engaging art project showcasing the traditions, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have experienced discrimination, integration policies, and suppression of their language by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the installation also draws attention to the group's struggles associated with the climate crisis, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Materials

On the extended entry slope, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot formation of pelts ensnared by electrical wires. It can be read as a symbol for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this part of the installation, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, wherein solid sheets of ice appear as fluctuating weather thaw and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary cold-season nourishment, lichen. This phenomenon is a consequence of climate change, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than in other regions.

Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they carried carts of food pellets on to the barren tundra to distribute through labor. The reindeer surrounded round us, pawing the icy ground in vain attempts for vegetative pieces. This expensive and laborious method is having a severe influence on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the alternative is starvation. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from lack of food, others submerging after sinking in streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the installation is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The installation also highlights the sharp contrast between the modern understanding of energy as a asset to be exploited for gain and existence and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an inherent power in animals, people, and land. Tate Modern's past as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider eco-imperialism by regional governments. As they strive to be exemplars for renewable energy, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their legal protections, ways of life, and way of life are at risk. "It's challenging being such a limited population to defend yourself when the justifications are rooted in global sustainability," Sara observes. "Extractivism has co-opted the rhetoric of sustainability, but still it's just attempting to find alternative ways to persist in habits of use."

Family Struggles

Sara and her family have personally clashed with the state authorities over its tightening regulations on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's brother initiated a set of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his livestock, apparently to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a multi-year collection of artworks titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal drape of 400 animal bones, which was shown at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it resides in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

For many Sámi, art appears the exclusive sphere in which they can be listened to by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|