Exploring this Smell of Apprehension: The Sámi Artist Transforms Tate's Exhibition Space with Arctic Deer Themed Artwork

Guests to the renowned gallery are familiar to unexpected displays in its expansive Turbine Hall. They have relaxed under an simulated sun, descended down spiral slides, and seen robotic jellyfish floating through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be engaging themselves in the intricate nose passages of a reindeer. The latest creative installation for this huge space—designed by Indigenous Sámi creator Máret Ánne Sara—encourages gallerygoers into a labyrinthine structure based on the expanded interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or relax on pelts, tuning in on earphones to Sámi elders imparting narratives and insights.

Focus on the Nasal Passages

Why the nose? It could seem whimsical, but the installation celebrates a obscure scientific wonder: scientists have uncovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by 80 degrees celsius, allowing the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic climates. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara explains, "produces a feeling of smallness that you as a individual are not in control over nature." Sara is a ex- journalist, writer for kids, and land defender, who comes from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that generates the possibility to change your perspective or spark some humbleness," she adds.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The winding installation is among various features in Sara's immersive art project celebrating the culture, knowledge, and philosophy of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Traditionally mobile, the Sámi total about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They have endured discrimination, integration policies, and repression of their tongue by all four countries. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi belief system and founding narrative, the work also spotlights the group's struggles relating to the climate crisis, loss of territory, and colonialism.

Meaning in Components

On the extended access slope, there's a soaring, 26-meter sculpture of skins entangled by electrical wires. It represents a symbol for the political and economic systems restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this component of the installation, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, whereby thick layers of ice appear as fluctuating temperatures thaw and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' main winter nourishment, lichen. This phenomenon is a consequence of planetary warming, which is taking place up to at an accelerated rate in the Far North than globally.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and went with Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they transported trailers of animal nutrition on to the exposed tundra to provide manually. These animals surrounded round us, scratching the frozen ground in vain for vegetative pieces. This expensive and labour-intensive method is having a significant influence on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' natural survival. However the alternative is death. When such conditions become frequent, reindeer are succumbing—some from starvation, others submerging after falling into streams through unstable frozen surfaces. To some extent, the art is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Diverging Worldviews

The installation also highlights the sharp divergence between the industrial interpretation of energy as a resource to be exploited for economic benefit and existence and the Sámi outlook of vitality as an natural life force in creatures, humans, and land. This venue's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by regional governments. In their efforts to be exemplars for renewable energy, Scandinavian countries have disagreed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and digging operations on their traditional territory; the Sámi argue their fundamental freedoms, livelihoods, and way of life are endangered. "It's challenging being such a small minority to stand your ground when the reasons are based on environmental protection," Sara observes. "Extractivism has adopted the discourse of sustainability, but nonetheless it's just striving to find better ways to continue habits of expenditure."

Family Challenges

Sara and her relatives have personally conflicted with the national administration over its tightening rules on reindeer management. In 2016, Sara's brother initiated a set of ultimately unsuccessful court actions over the mandatory slaughter of his herd, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. As a show of solidarity, Sara created a extended series of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive screen of numerous reindeer skulls, which was shown at the 2017 event Documenta 14 and later purchased by the National Museum of Oslo, where it hangs in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Advocacy

For many Sámi, art is the sole domain in which they can be heard by the global community. Recently, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|