Come fall, London’s art enthusiasts eagerly await the unveiling of Tate Modern’s annual Turbine Hall commission–a rare chance for a contemporary art star to work on a truly monumental scale, filling the museum’s cavernous central exhibition hall. In recent memory, Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui wowed audiences with the sheer scale of his cascading bottle caps. Last year, Mire Lee’s grotesque body-horror contraptions divided opinion. But the response to this year’s much subtler installation by Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara has been comparatively muted.
Decreed “tame” by the critics, does not stun or surprise like its predecessors. Instead, it asks of us a more intimate engagement. In return, Sara promises to open our eyes to a different way of life, one in which humans hold sacred their interdependent relationship with nature. These are the lessons of Sámi philosophy, developed over centuries by people Indigenous to the Sápmi region, which stretches across the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland.
“You are activating a whole philosophy, a different way of being,” said Sara during a press conference at Tate Modern on Monday morning. “You have to connect spiritually, to awaken a different knowledge apparatus that lives in your body, when you live with animals in this close co-existence.”
Installation view of “Hyundai Commission: Maret Anne Sara” in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, 2025. Photo: Larina Fernandez, © Tate.
Rendering Reverence
has two parts. The standout piece at the back, titled , invites audiences to wander through a maze-like structure of simple wooden fences that, in four places, spiral inwards to reveal a circular nook of fur-lined seats dotted with headphones. Sara is descended from a Sámi reindeer herding family and the viewer can tune into her personal account of learning to care for and revere the animal. This pact between man and beast also involves the latter’s slaughter, a sacrifice honored by the careful use of its entire being, from bones to fur and meat. As such, skulls decorate Sara’s structure.
“The beauty is what you can make out of them, how you can give them a new life,” said Sara.
Seen from above, on the Turbine Hall’s bridge, ‘s swirling forms mimic those found inside a reindeer’s nose. This astonishing labyrinth is a feat of biological engineering with the ability to heat each new breath of air by 175°F, allowing reindeer to survive the extreme cold. By magnifying these forms until they dwarf us, Sara emphasizes our humble position within nature’s sprawling systems, whether we care to acknowledge it or not.
Portrait of Máret Ánne Sara at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, 2025. Photo: Sonal Bakrania. © Tate.
“Your experience is of bodily inferiority, entering this universe of natural intelligence embedded with Indigenous science,” explained Sara. “It’s so big you might lose your direction at certain points. A modern human with modern rationality believes they can rule over nature but from the Sámi perspective we are equal to everything.”
Other references to the herding tradition include “reindeer earmarks,” distinctive markings that are passed down generations, carved into the fence’s poles. Further immersing the attentive viewer is a layered scent and soundscape that includes recordings from the Sápmi landscape and examples of , a form of Sámi song that can serve as a channel for communion with the elements of our world.
Climate Focus
The work’s second part, towers over the viewer, reaching up over 90 feet to the ceiling. Its column of reindeer hides tautly stretched by electrical power cables is a memorial to reindeer lives lost to climate change. Sudden temperature fluctuations are disorientating and can also prevent animals from accessing crucial food sources. The cables also refer to the ongoing exploitation of Sápmi lands through mining activities, which not only destroys habitats and displaces communities, but risks diminishing age-old ancestral practices.
“I work very consciously with materials in terms of the power they bear,” said Sara. “The hides carry a very strong life energy and spirit within them.” Tied up by cables for , they become “a symbol of life trapped within the mechanisms of capitalism and extractivism.”
Installation view of “Hyundai Commission: Maret Anne Sara” in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, 2025. Photo: Yili Liu, © Tate.
Sara has long sought to raise awareness of issues facing the Sámi people thorough her art. The most notable example is , which she made in response to Norway’s order that her brother cull part of his livestock. While he launched an unsuccessful legal challenge, she created vast sculptural works out of reindeer skulls. By referring to a famous historical photograph in which men stand on a mountainous pile of bison skulls, the works’ title forges a link between the Sámi plight and those of other Indigenous communities across the world. Bison were hunted to near extinction by European settlers as a means of depriving Native Americans of a vital life force.
At the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, Sara converted the Nordic Pavilion into the Sámi Pavilion, where she placed the corpse of a reindeer calf within a swirling cocoon of hanging birch branches to make a mobile. Other sculptural works were made of reindeer intestines, referring to the emotional “gut” knowledge that belongs to all living beings. It is this infusion of Sámi philosophy that prevents Sara’s work from ever feeling morbid. Rather, it is a unique, multi-sensory celebration of all life.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
