Delving into this Smell of Fear: Máret Ánne Sara Reimagines The Gallery's Turbine Hall with Reindeer Inspired Installation

Guests to the renowned gallery are used to unexpected experiences in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've basked under an man-made sun, slid down spiral slides, and seen robotic jellyfish floating through the air. But this marks the inaugural time they will be immersing themselves in the intricate nose passages of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this immense space—created by Native Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like structure based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose airways. Upon entering, they can meander around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to community leaders imparting tales and insights.

Why the Nose?

Why the nose? It could seem whimsical, but the artwork pays tribute to a little-known biological feat: researchers have uncovered that in a fraction of a second, the reindeer's nose can raise the temperature of the surrounding air it breathes in by 80°C, allowing the creature to survive in harsh Arctic conditions. Expanding the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara says, "creates a feeling of insignificance that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." The artist is a ex- reporter, writer for kids, and environmental activist, who is from a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway. "Maybe that fosters the possibility to alter your outlook or evoke some humility," she states.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The labyrinthine installation is one of several elements in Sara's immersive art project showcasing the culture, understanding, and beliefs of the Sámi, the sole native group in Europe. Partially migratory, the Sámi number about 100,000 people distributed across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an area they call Sápmi). They've experienced oppression, cultural suppression, and suppression of their language by all four countries. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the center of the Sámi cosmology and origin tale, the installation also draws attention to the people's challenges connected to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and colonialism.

Metaphor in Elements

At the extended access ramp, there's a soaring, eighty-five-foot formation of reindeer hides entangled by power and light cables. It serves as a metaphor for the societal frameworks restricting the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part celestial ladder, this part of the artwork, titled Goavve-, refers to the Sámi name for an extreme weather phenomenon, in which thick coatings of ice develop as fluctuating weather liquefy and solidify again the snow, locking in the reindeers' key cold-season food, lichen. Goavvi is a outcome of planetary warming, which is taking place up to much more rapidly in the Far North than elsewhere.

Previously, I met with Sara in a remote town during a goavvi winter and joined Sámi reindeer keepers on their Arctic vehicles in biting cold as they hauled containers of food pellets on to the wind-scoured frozen landscape to distribute through labor. The herd gathered round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain for mossy morsels. This resource-intensive and laborious method is having a significant impact on animal rearing—and on the animals' independence. Yet the other option is starvation. As goavvi winters become routine, reindeer are perishing—some from starvation, others suffocating after sinking in water bodies through prematurely melting ice. In a sense, the art is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of elements, in a way I'm introducing the condition to London," says Sara.

Opposing Belief Systems

The installation also emphasizes the sharp divergence between the modern interpretation of power as a asset to be exploited for gain and livelihood and the Sámi worldview of energy as an innate essence in animals, individuals, and land. Tate Modern's past as a fossil fuel plant is connected to this, as is what the Sámi view as eco-imperialism by Nordic countries. As they strive to be standard bearers for clean sources, these states have clashed with the Sámi over the building of windfarms, hydroelectric dams, and mines on their traditional territory; the Sámi contend their human rights, incomes, and culture are at risk. "It's very difficult being such a limited population to defend yourself when the reasons are grounded in saving the world," Sara comments. "Extractivism has adopted the discourse of ecology, but nonetheless it's just attempting to find more suitable ways to maintain habits of expenditure."

Individual Conflicts

She and her relatives have themselves disagreed with the state authorities over its ever-stricter regulations on herding. In 2016, Sara's sibling initiated a series of unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his herd, supposedly to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara created a four-year series of pieces called Pile O'Sápmi comprising a massive curtain of four hundred reindeer skulls, which was displayed at the the event Documenta 14 and later acquired by the national institution, where it hangs in the entrance.

Creative Expression as Awareness

Among the community, creative work appears the only sphere in which they can be understood by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|