Delving into this Scent of Apprehension: The Sámi Artist Revamps The Gallery's Exhibition Space with Arctic Deer Themed Installation

Attendees to the renowned gallery are familiar to surprising encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have basked under an simulated sun, glided down amusement rides, and observed robotic jellyfish hovering through the air. However this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal passages of a reindeer. The newest artistic project for this cavernous space—designed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages patrons into a maze-like design inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Once inside, they can wander around or chill out on reindeer hides, tuning in on earphones to community leaders sharing tales and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It may seem playful, but the exhibit celebrates a rarely recognized scientific wonder: scientists have found that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to survive in harsh Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "creates a sense of insignificance that you as a individual are not superior over nature." The artist is a former writer, young adult author, and land defender, who hails from a herding family in northern Norway. "Possibly that fosters the potential to shift your viewpoint or trigger some modesty," she adds.

A Tribute to Sámi Culture

The labyrinthine structure is among various elements in Sara's absorbing exhibition showcasing the culture, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people distributed across northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced discrimination, cultural suppression, and eradication of their dialect by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the art also draws attention to the people's challenges associated with the global warming, property rights, and external control.

Meaning in Components

On the lengthy access incline, there's a looming, eighty-five-foot sculpture of reindeer hides trapped by electrical wires. It serves as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this component of the installation, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an harsh environmental condition, whereby dense sheets of ice form as changing weather thaw and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' key cold-season food, moss. Goavvi is a result of global heating, which is occurring up to four times faster in the Far North than in other regions.

Previously, I met with Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and accompanied Sámi herders on their Arctic vehicles in freezing temperatures as they transported carts of animal nutrition on to the wind-scoured Arctic plains to dispense by hand. The herd gathered round us, scratching the icy ground in vain attempts for lichen-covered bits. This resource-intensive and demanding procedure is having a drastic impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. However the other option is starvation. As these icy periods become frequent, reindeer are dying—a number from starvation, others submerging after falling into lakes and rivers through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the work is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Belief Systems

This artwork also highlights the clear difference between the modern interpretation of electricity as a resource to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi outlook of life force as an innate life force in animals, humans, and nature. Tate Modern's history as a fossil fuel plant is tied up in this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by regional governments. As they strive to be standard bearers for renewable energy, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their ancestral land; the Sámi assert their legal protections, incomes, and traditions are at risk. "It's hard being such a limited population to stand your ground when the arguments are based on global sustainability," Sara comments. "Extractivism has adopted the language of sustainability, but still it's just aiming to find more suitable ways to maintain patterns of use."

Individual Conflicts

She and her family have themselves clashed with the state authorities over its increasingly stringent policies on animal husbandry. Previously, Sara's brother embarked on a set of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits over the required reduction of his livestock, supposedly to stop overgrazing. In support, Sara created a four-year set of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi featuring a colossal screen of numerous animal bones, which was exhibited at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later purchased by the public gallery, where it resides in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Activism

For many Sámi, creative work appears the exclusive domain in which they can be heard by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|