Sámi Artist Máret Ánne Sara to Reengineer Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall

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Northern Sámi artist and author Máret Ánne Sara has been appointed to create the tenth Hyundai Commission for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in London.

Sara’s work explores ecological issues and the impact of Nordic colonialism on the Sámi community, using materials and methods derived from the practice of reindeer herding.

Tate Modern director Karin Hindsbo said that Sara ‘hopes not only to increase interest and awareness’ for these concerns, ‘but also to effect real change’.

The multidisciplinary artist was born in 1983 to a reindeer herding family in Guovdageaidnu, Norway, the traditional territory of the Sámi people which is today divided between Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia.

Sara’s work featured at the Nordic Pavilion at 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, which she transformed into ‘The Sámi Pavilion’ as part of a presentation with artists Pauliina Feodoroff and Anders Sunna.

At documenta 14, Sara showed Pile o’ Sápmi-Supreme (2017), an installation including a vast curtain made from reindeer skulls and a necklace strung with porcelain beads formed from reindeer-bone ash.

The Hyundai Commission is part of a partnership between Tate Modern and Hyundai Motor, which was recently extended to 2036. The Hyundai Commission has attracted 18 million visitors to the museum since its first edition in 2014, according to Tate. Artists who have created work for the series include El Anatsui (2023), Cecilia Vicuña (2022), Anicka Yi (2021), and Kara Walker (2019).

Currently inhabiting the Turbine Hall is Korean artist Mire Lee, whose large-scale installation Open Wound reimagines the space as a living factory and is on view until 16 March. Sara’s commission will open from mid-October and run until April 2026. —[O]

Main image: Máret Ánne Sara, Pile O'Sápmi-Supreme (2017). © Máret Ánne Sara. Exhibition view: Neue Neue Galerie (Neue Hauptpost), documenta 14, Kassel (8 April–17 September 2017). Photo: Matti Aikio.