🔗 Share this article

Guests to the renowned gallery are accustomed to unexpected experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have basked under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and witnessed AI-powered jellyfish floating through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be engaging themselves in the complex nose cavities of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this cavernous space—developed by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a labyrinthine construction modeled after the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can meander around or chill out on skins, tuning in on headphones to tribal seniors sharing narratives and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It may seem whimsical, but the exhibit celebrates a obscure natural marvel: scientists have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can heat the ambient air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to endure in inhospitable Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "generates a feeling of smallness that you as a individual are not in control over nature." She is a former writer, young adult author, and rights advocate, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that creates the chance to change your viewpoint or trigger some humbleness," she states.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine design is part of a elements in Sara's immersive exhibition showcasing the heritage, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi count approximately 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced persecution, forced assimilation, and suppression of their dialect by all four countries. Through highlighting the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and founding narrative, the installation also spotlights the community's challenges associated with the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and external control.

Symbolism in Components

On the extended entry ramp, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot formation of pelts entangled by power and light cables. It represents a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this section of the exhibit, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, wherein dense coatings of ice develop as fluctuating temperatures liquefy and refreeze the snow, encasing the reindeers' main winter food, lichen. The condition is a result of climate change, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than globally.

Three years ago, I met with Sara in a remote town during a icy season and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their snowmobiles in chilly conditions as they hauled containers of food pellets on to the barren Arctic plains to provide by hand. The herd gathered round us, digging the slippery ground in futility for lichen-covered morsels. This costly and laborious procedure is having a drastic effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. Yet the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are succumbing—some from hunger, others drowning after sinking in water bodies through unstable frozen surfaces. On one level, the art is a monument to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Contrasting Worldviews

The sculpture also underscores the stark difference between the industrial interpretation of energy as a asset to be harnessed for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of life force as an inherent power in creatures, individuals, and nature. Tate Modern's legacy as a coal and oil power station 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, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of windfarms, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi contend their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and way of life are threatened. "It's challenging being such a small minority to protect your rights when the arguments are grounded in global sustainability," Sara observes. "Mining practices has appropriated the rhetoric of sustainability, but still it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to continue habits of use."

Individual Conflicts

She and her family have themselves disagreed with the national administration over its ever-stricter policies on herding. Previously, Sara's brother undertook a set of finally failed lawsuits over the required reduction of his herd, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara developed a multi-year series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi including a colossal screen of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it hangs in the lobby.

The Role of Art in Awareness

Among the community, visual expression appears the only domain in which they can be listened to by people of other nations. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|