🔗 Share this article

Attendees to Tate Modern are familiar to unusual encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and observed robotic jellyfish floating through the air. But this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the complex nose cavities of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this cavernous space—developed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a labyrinthine design inspired by the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, listening on earphones to Sámi elders sharing stories and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It may sound whimsical, but the installation honors a obscure biological feat: scientists have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the ambient air it takes in by 80°C, allowing the creature to endure in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Enlarging the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara explains, "generates a perception of inferiority that you as a human being are not superior over nature." Sara is a ex- writer, writer for kids, and land defender, who hails from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that fosters the possibility to change your perspective or trigger some modesty," she states.

An Homage to Sámi Culture

The winding installation is one of several features in Sara's immersive exhibition celebrating the culture, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total about 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced persecution, forced assimilation, and suppression of their tongue by all four nations. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the installation also spotlights the community's struggles associated with the global warming, property rights, and external control.

Metaphor in Materials

On the extended entry incline, there's a looming, 26-metre sculpture of skins ensnared by utility lines. It can be read as a analogy for the societal frameworks constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this section of the artwork, titled Goavve-, relates to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, wherein dense sheets of ice develop as varying conditions liquefy and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, lichen. This phenomenon is a consequence of climate change, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than in other regions.

Previously, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they transported trailers of animal nutrition on to the barren tundra to dispense manually. The reindeer gathered round us, pawing the frozen ground in vain attempts for mossy morsels. This costly and labour-intensive procedure is having a drastic impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. However the other option is malnutrition. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are succumbing—some from hunger, others suffocating after falling into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the installation is a monument to them. "With the layering of components, in a way I'm bringing the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

The installation also emphasizes the clear difference between the western understanding of energy as a commodity to be utilized for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of energy as an natural essence in creatures, humans, and nature. This venue's history as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi view as environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be standard bearers for clean sources, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their human rights, incomes, and traditions are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to stand your ground when the reasons are based on environmental protection," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has adopted the rhetoric of environmentalism, but still it's just striving to find alternative ways to persist in habits of consumption."

Personal Conflicts

Sara and her kin have themselves conflicted with the Norwegian government over its ever-stricter rules on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's sibling undertook a set of unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his livestock, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara developed a four-year collection of artworks called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge curtain of numerous reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it hangs in the entryway.

Art as Activism

For many Sámi, creative work seems the only sphere in which they can be heard by outsiders. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|