Unveiling this Smell of Anxiety: The Sámi Artist Revamps Tate's Turbine Hall with Arctic Deer Themed Exhibit

Attendees to Tate Modern are used to surprising displays in its vast Turbine Hall. They've basked under an artificial sun, slid down amusement rides, and observed AI-powered jellyfish floating through the air. However this marks the initial time they will be venturing themselves in the intricate nasal chambers of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this cavernous space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a maze-like structure inspired by the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Inside, they can meander around or chill out on skins, tuning in on headphones to community leaders sharing stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why choose the nasal structure? It may seem playful, but the exhibit pays tribute to a obscure biological feat: experts have found that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it breathes in by 80°C, allowing the creature to thrive in extreme Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a sense of inferiority that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." She is a ex- writer, young adult author, and rights advocate, who is from a pastoral family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that fosters the chance to alter your outlook or evoke some modesty," she continues.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The winding installation is part of a elements in Sara's absorbing exhibition showcasing the traditions, science, and worldview of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi count roughly 100,000 people spread across northern Norway, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced discrimination, forced assimilation, and repression of their dialect by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also highlights the people's issues connected to the climate crisis, property rights, and imperialism.

Meaning in Components

On the extended entrance incline, there's a soaring, 26-metre structure of reindeer hides trapped by electrical wires. It represents a symbol for the political and economic systems limiting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part spiritual ascent, this component of the installation, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an harsh environmental condition, wherein thick layers of ice appear as changing conditions melt and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' key winter food, lichen. This phenomenon is a result of planetary warming, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Polar region than globally.

Previously, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and accompanied Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they carried containers of food pellets on to the exposed Arctic plains to dispense by hand. The herd gathered round us, scratching the icy ground in vain for lichen-covered bits. This costly and demanding procedure is having a severe influence on herding practices—and on the animals' independence. But the other option is starvation. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from starvation, others drowning after falling into streams through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the art is a monument to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm bringing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

This artwork also emphasizes the stark divergence between the industrial understanding of energy as a commodity to be utilized for gain and survival and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an innate power in creatures, humans, and nature. The gallery's history as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi view as green colonialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be standard bearers for renewable energy, these states have disagreed with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, water power facilities, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and traditions are endangered. "It's hard being such a limited population to stand your ground when the justifications are rooted in global sustainability," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has adopted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to continue habits of expenditure."

Family Conflicts

Sara and her relatives have personally clashed with the state authorities over its ever-stricter rules on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a set of finally failed lawsuits over the forced culling of his herd, apparently to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara created a extended set of creations titled Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive curtain of numerous animal bones, which was shown at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it resides in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Activism

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