Visitors to Tate Modern are accustomed to unexpected encounters in its vast Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, glided down amusement rides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures drifting through the air. But this marks the first time they will be venturing themselves in the detailed nose passages of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this immense space—created by Native Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—invites gallerygoers into a winding structure inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Once inside, they can stroll around or chill out on reindeer hides, listening on earphones to Sámi elders sharing narratives and wisdom.
Why choose the nasal structure? It could appear playful, but the installation honors a obscure scientific wonder: researchers have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it inhales by eighty degrees, allowing the animal to endure in extreme Arctic temperatures. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "creates a feeling of smallness that you as a individual are not superior over nature." The artist is a ex- writer, children's author, and environmental activist, who hails from a herding family in northern Norway. "Perhaps that creates the potential to shift your outlook or trigger some modesty," she adds.
The winding design is among various elements in Sara's immersive commission honoring the culture, understanding, and philosophy of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Kola region (an territory they call Sápmi). They have faced oppression, integration policies, and eradication of their language by all four states. Through highlighting the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the art also highlights the group's struggles connected to the global warming, loss of territory, and imperialism.
Along the extended access slope, there's a soaring, 26-metre structure of pelts ensnared by power and light cables. It represents a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part heavenly staircase, this part of the installation, called Goavve-, relates to the Sámi name for an harsh environmental condition, whereby solid coatings of ice form as changing temperatures liquefy and ice over the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter food, lichen. Goavvi is a consequence of global heating, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than in other regions.
Three years ago, I visited Sara in a remote town during a icy season and accompanied Sámi herders on their motorized sleds in freezing temperatures as they carried containers of food pellets on to the barren Arctic plains to dispense through labor. These animals gathered round us, pawing the icy ground in vain attempts for mossy pieces. This expensive and demanding method is having a severe influence on herding practices—and on the animals' natural survival. But the choice is death. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—some from starvation, others drowning after sinking in streams through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the art is a monument to them. "By overlapping of components, in a way I'm transporting the condition to London," says Sara.
The installation also underscores the sharp difference between the modern interpretation of energy as a resource to be harnessed for profit and existence and the Sámi outlook of life force as an innate life force in creatures, people, and land. Tate Modern's legacy as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. While attempting to be exemplars for clean sources, these states have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of windfarms, water power facilities, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and culture are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to protect your rights when the arguments are based on saving the world," Sara observes. "Resource exploitation has appropriated the rhetoric of environmentalism, but still it's just striving to find better ways to continue habits of consumption."
The artist and her relatives have themselves disagreed with the state authorities over its tightening regulations on herding. In 2016, Sara's brother initiated a series of finally failed lawsuits over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, ostensibly to stop vegetation depletion. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a extended set of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi including a huge drape of numerous animal bones, which was shown at the 2017's art exhibition Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it resides in the lobby.
For many Sámi, art seems the only domain in which they can be listened to by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|
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