Unveiling this Aroma of Fear: Máret Ánne Sara Reimagines Tate's Exhibition Space with Arctic Deer Themed Artwork

Visitors to the renowned gallery are familiar to unusual encounters in its expansive Turbine Hall. They've sunbathed under an man-made sun, descended down spiral slides, and witnessed AI-powered sea creatures floating through the air. Yet this marks the initial time they will be engaging themselves in the detailed nose chambers of a reindeer. The latest artist commission for this cavernous space—designed by Indigenous Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara—invites visitors into a maze-like structure based on the enlarged inside of a reindeer's nose passages. Upon entering, they can wander around or unwind on reindeer hides, tuning in on headphones to community leaders imparting stories and insights.

The Significance of the Nose

Why choose the nasal structure? It could seem quirky, but the exhibit celebrates a obscure biological feat: scientists have uncovered that in under a second, the reindeer's nose can heat the surrounding air it breathes in by 80 degrees celsius, enabling the creature to survive in inhospitable Arctic climates. Scaling the nose to human-scale dimensions, Sara notes, "generates a feeling of inferiority that you as a individual are not dominant over nature." Sara is a ex- journalist, children's author, and rights advocate, who hails from a herding family in the far north of Norway. "Possibly that generates the potential to shift your perspective or trigger some humbleness," she states.

An Homage to Traditional Ways

The winding design is part of a features in Sara's engaging art project showcasing the traditions, science, and beliefs of the Sámi, the continent's original inhabitants. Partially migratory, the Sámi total about 100,000 people ranged across the Norwegian north, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Arctic (an territory they call Sápmi). They have experienced persecution, forced assimilation, and repression of their dialect by all four nations. With an emphasis on the reindeer, an animal at the heart of the Sámi belief system and origin tale, the installation also spotlights the community's challenges connected to the environmental emergency, land dispossession, and imperialism.

Metaphor in Materials

Along the lengthy entry slope, there's a soaring, 26-meter sculpture of reindeer hides entangled by utility lines. It can be read as a analogy for the governance and financial structures constraining the Sámi. Like an electrical tower, part heavenly staircase, this section of the exhibit, called Goavve-, points to the Sámi name for an severe climatic event, in which solid coatings of ice develop as varying weather liquefy and ice over the snow, locking in the reindeers' primary winter food, lichen. The condition is a result of climate change, which is occurring up to at an accelerated rate in the Polar region than globally.

Previously, I visited Sara in the Norwegian far north during a goavvi winter and accompanied Sámi reindeer keepers on their motorized sleds in chilly conditions as they transported carts of animal nutrition on to the barren frozen landscape to dispense through labor. The herd gathered round us, pawing the slippery ground in vain attempts for mossy bits. This costly and demanding process is having a significant impact on reindeer husbandry—and on the animals' independence. However the alternative is malnutrition. As goavvi winters become commonplace, reindeer are perishing—a number from lack of food, others suffocating after falling into streams through thinning ice sheets. To some extent, the work is a memorial to them. "Through the stacking of materials, in a way I'm bringing the phenomenon to London," says Sara.

Diverging Perspectives

This artwork also underscores the stark divergence between the modern interpretation of electricity as a commodity to be harnessed for gain and survival and the Sámi outlook of life force as an natural power in creatures, humans, and the environment. Tate Modern's past as a industrial facility is connected to this, as is what the Sámi consider environmental exploitation by Scandinavian states. As they strive to be leaders for sustainable power, Nordic nations have locked horns with the Sámi over the construction of turbine fields, water power facilities, and digging operations on their native soil; the Sámi argue their legal protections, incomes, and culture are endangered. "It's hard being such a limited population to protect your rights when the justifications are based on global sustainability," Sara comments. "Resource exploitation has co-opted the language of environmentalism, but nonetheless it's just striving to find alternative ways to maintain habits of expenditure."

Individual Conflicts

She and her relatives have personally clashed with the national administration over its tightening regulations on animal husbandry. In 2016, Sara's sibling embarked on a set of ultimately unsuccessful legal cases over the forced culling of his herd, apparently to stop excessive feeding. In support, Sara produced a multi-year series of creations named Pile O'Sápmi featuring a massive curtain of four hundred cranial remains, which was exhibited at the the art exhibition Documenta 14 and later obtained by the national institution, where it is displayed in the entryway.

The Role of Art in Awareness

Among the community, art seems the exclusive domain in which they can be understood by the global community. Two years ago, Sara was {one of three|among a group of|