Delving into this Smell of Apprehension: The Sámi Artist Reimagines Tate's Exhibition Space with Reindeer Inspired Exhibit
Attendees to Tate Modern are accustomed to surprising experiences in its vast Turbine Hall. They have basked under an artificial sun, slid down amusement rides, and seen robotic jellyfish drifting through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the detailed nasal chambers of a reindeer. The newest creative installation for this huge space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—encourages visitors into a labyrinthine structure modeled after the enlarged interior of a reindeer's nasal passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or chill out on reindeer hides, listening on headphones to tribal seniors telling stories and insights.
Why the Nose?
What's the focus on the nose? It may appear playful, but the artwork pays tribute to a obscure natural marvel: researchers have found that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can warm the incoming air it inhales by eighty degrees, allowing the creature to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Enlarging the nose to bigger than a person, Sara notes, "generates a sense of inferiority that you as a individual are not in control over nature." The artist is a ex- reporter, children's author, and rights advocate, who hails from a pastoral family in northern Norway. "Maybe that generates the possibility to shift your outlook or evoke some humility," she states.
A Celebration to Indigenous Heritage
The labyrinthine installation is one of several elements in Sara's engaging exhibition honoring the culture, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, Europe's only Indigenous people. Semi-nomadic, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an region they call Sápmi). They've faced persecution, integration policies, and repression of their tongue by all four states. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an creature at the center of the Sámi mythology and origin tale, the installation also draws attention to the community's challenges relating to the climate crisis, property rights, and imperialism.
Symbolism in Components
On the lengthy entry ramp, there's a soaring, 26-meter formation of skins ensnared by power and light cables. It can be read as a metaphor for the governance and financial structures limiting the Sámi. Part pylon, part celestial ladder, this part of the artwork, called Goavve-, refers to the Sámi term for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which thick layers of ice appear as changing weather thaw and solidify again the snow, trapping the reindeers' primary winter food, moss. The condition is a outcome of climate change, which is happening up to at an accelerated rate in the Arctic than in other regions.
Three years ago, I traveled to see Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi pastoralists on their Arctic vehicles in chilly conditions as they carried containers of animal nutrition on to the exposed Arctic plains to provide by hand. These animals gathered round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain attempts for mossy pieces. This resource-intensive and laborious procedure is having a severe effect on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. Yet the choice is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are dying—a number from lack of food, others drowning after sinking in lakes and rivers through prematurely melting ice. On one level, the work is a tribute to them. "Through the stacking of components, in a way I'm introducing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.
Opposing Perspectives
The installation also emphasizes the clear difference between the western view of power as a resource to be utilized for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an innate essence in creatures, people, and nature. Tate Modern's legacy as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Nordic countries. While attempting to be standard bearers for sustainable power, Scandinavian countries have clashed with the Sámi over the construction of wind energy projects, river barriers, and mines on their native soil; the Sámi assert their fundamental freedoms, incomes, and way of life are threatened. "It's challenging being such a limited population to protect your rights when the reasons are rooted in saving the world," Sara comments. "Mining practices has adopted the discourse of sustainability, but yet it's just attempting to find alternative ways to persist in practices of use."
Family Conflicts
The artist and her kin have personally clashed with the Norwegian government over its tightening regulations on reindeer management. Previously, Sara's sibling initiated a series of finally failed court actions over the required reduction of his animals, supposedly to stop overgrazing. As a show of solidarity, Sara developed a four-year set of artworks named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a huge drape of numerous animal bones, which was displayed at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later acquired by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the lobby.
Art as Awareness
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