Guests to Tate Modern are familiar to unusual displays in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have sunbathed under an artificial sun, descended down spiral slides, and observed robotic jellyfish floating through the air. Yet this marks the first time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The current artistic project for this cavernous space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes gallerygoers into a maze-like design modeled after the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose cavities. Upon entering, they can stroll around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to community leaders telling tales and wisdom.
The Significance of the Nose
Why choose the nasal structure? It could seem playful, but the artwork celebrates a obscure biological feat: scientists have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the surrounding air it inhales by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the animal to thrive in extreme Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to larger than human size, Sara notes, "produces a perception of smallness that you as a person are not superior over nature." Sara is a former reporter, young adult author, and environmental activist, who is from a reindeer-herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Perhaps that generates the potential to alter your perspective or trigger some modesty," she states.
A Celebration to Traditional Ways
The maze-like installation is part of a elements in Sara's immersive commission honoring the traditions, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They have faced discrimination, cultural suppression, and repression of their tongue by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the installation also draws attention to the group's challenges associated with the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.
Metaphor in Elements
At the extended entry slope, there's a towering, 26-metre formation of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It serves as a symbol for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part heavenly staircase, this section of the artwork, titled Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, whereby solid sheets of ice develop as fluctuating conditions melt and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' key winter nourishment, moss. Goavvi is a outcome of global heating, which is happening up to four times faster in the Far North than elsewhere.
Three years ago, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and accompanied Sámi herders on their snowmobiles in freezing temperatures as they hauled carts of food pellets on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to distribute by hand. These animals surrounded round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain for vegetative pieces. This resource-intensive and demanding procedure is having a significant impact on herding practices—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the choice is death. When such conditions become commonplace, reindeer are succumbing—a number from hunger, others suffocating after falling into lakes and rivers through thinning ice sheets. In a sense, the art is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of elements, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.
Opposing Belief Systems
The sculpture also highlights the clear difference between the western view of power as a resource to be exploited for profit and existence and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an natural power in creatures, individuals, and the environment. Tate Modern's past as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be standard bearers for clean sources, Nordic nations have clashed with the Sámi over the building of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi argue their legal protections, ways of life, and traditions are endangered. "It's hard being such a limited population to stand your ground when the reasons are grounded in global sustainability," Sara notes. "Extractivism has appropriated the discourse of ecology, but still it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to maintain practices of use."
Personal Conflicts
The artist and her family have themselves conflicted with the Norwegian government over its tightening policies on animal husbandry. A few years ago, Sara's brother embarked on a sequence of finally failed lawsuits over the forced culling of his herd, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara produced a multi-year set of creations named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal drape of 400 cranial remains, which was shown at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entryway.
Creative Expression as Awareness
Among the community, visual expression appears the exclusive sphere in which they can be heard by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|
