Unveiling the Scent of Fear: Máret Ánne Sara Reimagines Tate's Exhibition Space with Arctic Deer Inspired Exhibit

Attendees to Tate Modern are used to surprising experiences in its spacious Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an man-made sun, glided down spiral slides, and observed AI-powered jellyfish hovering through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nose chambers of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this huge space—created by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—welcomes visitors into a maze-like construction inspired by the scaled-up inside of a reindeer's nasal passages. Inside, they can meander around or unwind on pelts, listening on headphones to Sámi elders sharing tales and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why choose the nasal structure? It might seem quirky, but the artwork pays tribute to a obscure natural marvel: scientists have discovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the ambient air it inhales by 80°C, helping the creature to endure in inhospitable Arctic climates. Expanding the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "creates a perception of smallness that you as a human being are not dominant over nature." Sara is a ex- reporter, children's author, and land defender, who is from a herding family in the Norwegian Arctic. "Maybe that generates the potential to change your perspective or trigger some modesty," she states.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine installation is part of a elements in Sara's absorbing commission honoring the culture, knowledge, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, the Finnish Arctic, the Swedish Lapland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula (an area they call Sápmi). They've experienced discrimination, integration policies, and eradication of their tongue by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and creation story, the installation also spotlights the people's issues relating to the environmental emergency, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Materials

Along the lengthy access ramp, there's a looming, 26-metre sculpture of pelts trapped by power and light cables. It can be read as a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this section of the exhibit, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which dense sheets of ice develop as varying temperatures melt and refreeze the snow, trapping the reindeers' key cold-season sustenance, fungus. This phenomenon is a consequence of global heating, which is happening up to four times faster in the Far North than elsewhere.

A few years back, I visited Sara in Guovdageaidnu during a icy season and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they hauled containers of animal nutrition on to the exposed tundra to dispense through labor. The herd gathered round us, pawing the frozen ground in vain attempts for vegetative pieces. This resource-intensive and labour-intensive method is having a drastic effect on animal rearing—and on the animals' natural survival. However the alternative is starvation. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are dying—a number from hunger, others drowning after falling into streams through thinning ice sheets. On one level, the installation is a monument to them. "With the layering of elements, in a way I'm transporting the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Perspectives

The installation also underscores the stark difference between the western interpretation of power as a resource to be harnessed for profit and existence and the Sámi worldview of life force as an innate power in creatures, individuals, and the environment. Tate Modern's legacy as a industrial facility is linked with this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by Nordic countries. In their efforts to be exemplars for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the building of wind energy projects, water power facilities, and extraction sites on their ancestral land; the Sámi argue their human rights, ways of life, and traditions are at risk. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to defend yourself when the arguments are rooted in saving the world," Sara observes. "Extractivism has adopted the discourse of sustainability, but still it's just striving to find alternative ways to continue patterns of use."

Family Challenges

She and her relatives have themselves disagreed with the national administration over its increasingly stringent regulations on reindeer management. A few years ago, Sara's sibling undertook a sequence of finally failed legal cases over the forced culling of his animals, supposedly to stop vegetation depletion. In support, Sara developed a extended set of pieces titled Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal screen of four hundred animal bones, which was displayed at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the public gallery, where it resides in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Advocacy

For numerous Indigenous people, visual expression appears the sole realm in which they can be heard by people of other nations. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|