Delving into this Aroma of Fear: The Sámi Artist Revamps Tate's Exhibition Space with Arctic Deer Themed Installation

Attendees to the renowned gallery are used to unusual encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, descended down amusement rides, and seen automated sea creatures floating through the air. Yet this marks the inaugural time they will be venturing themselves in the complex nasal cavities of a reindeer. The newest artist commission for this cavernous space—developed by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites patrons into a maze-like design modeled after the scaled-up interior of a reindeer's nose passages. Inside, they can wander around or chill out on skins, tuning in on headphones to community leaders sharing stories and wisdom.

The Significance of the Nose

What's the focus on the nose? It may seem whimsical, but the artwork honors a obscure scientific wonder: scientists have discovered that in less than one second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the incoming air it takes in by eighty degrees, enabling the animal to thrive in inhospitable Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to larger than human size, Sara explains, "creates a feeling of insignificance that you as a individual are not in control over nature." She is a ex- reporter, young adult author, and environmental activist, who hails from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Maybe that fosters the chance to shift your viewpoint or trigger some humbleness," she continues.

A Celebration to Traditional Ways

The maze-like installation is one of several features in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the traditions, understanding, and worldview of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi total roughly 100,000 people ranged across northern Norway, the Finnish Arctic, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They've endured persecution, cultural suppression, and eradication of their language by all four states. By focusing on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi mythology and creation story, the art also draws attention to the group's challenges relating to the global warming, land dispossession, and external control.

Meaning in Elements

At the long access slope, there's a towering, eighty-five-foot formation of pelts entangled by utility lines. It serves as a analogy for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Partly a utility pole, part celestial ladder, this section of the artwork, named Goavve-, points to the Sámi word for an severe climatic event, whereby dense layers of ice appear as varying conditions liquefy and solidify again the snow, encasing the reindeers' primary winter food, lichen. Goavvi is a consequence of global heating, which is happening up to much more rapidly in the Far North than elsewhere.

Three years ago, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a icy season and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in biting cold as they transported containers of supplementary feed on to the barren tundra to provide manually. The herd crowded round us, scratching the frozen ground in futility for mossy bits. This resource-intensive and demanding method is having a severe impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' self-sufficiency. But the alternative is death. As these icy periods become routine, reindeer are perishing—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after sinking in water bodies through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the installation is a tribute to them. "By overlapping of materials, in a way I'm introducing the goavvi to London," says Sara.

Opposing Worldviews

The sculpture also emphasizes the clear contrast between the western view of electricity as a resource to be exploited for economic benefit and livelihood and the Sámi philosophy of vitality as an inherent essence in animals, humans, and the environment. Tate Modern's history as a coal and oil power station is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider green colonialism by regional governments. As they strive to be exemplars for clean sources, Scandinavian countries have locked horns with the Sámi over the development of turbine fields, hydroelectric dams, and extraction sites on their native soil; the Sámi contend their human rights, livelihoods, and way of life are endangered. "It's challenging being such a tiny group to stand your ground when the arguments are based on environmental protection," Sara notes. "Extractivism has co-opted the discourse of ecology, but yet it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to maintain patterns of use."

Personal Struggles

Sara and her relatives have personally conflicted with the national administration over its increasingly stringent policies on herding. A few years ago, Sara's sibling initiated a set of unsuccessful legal cases over the required reduction of his animals, ostensibly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara produced a four-year set of pieces named Pile O'Sápmi comprising a colossal drape of 400 reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the 2017's show Documenta 14 and later obtained by the National Museum of Oslo, where it is displayed in the lobby.

Art as Awareness

Among the community, art is the only domain in which they can be heard by the global community. In 2022, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|