The Canary in the Turbine Hall

"LONDON - Electrical cables now run from floor to ceiling in the Tate Modern's cavernous Turbine Hall, its largest and most prestigious exhibition space - and the site where polluting coal fire once generated enormous amounts of electricity. In Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara's monumental sculpture, reindeer hides interweave the taut wires like the rungs of a ladder. Her juxtaposition of the industrial and the natural asks us to rethink what we mean by power - and reminds us that the infrastructures for generating energy have only been pushed out of sight for urbanites."

"One-half of the work's title, "Goavve," is a Sámi term referring to a phenomenon of extreme weather in which fluctuating temperatures melt and re-freeze snow, resulting in hard ice crusts that the reindeer are unable to break through to find food in winter. In choosing such a technical term, Sara seems to argue for a framework of power derived from Indigenous ancestral and ecological knowledge - not in the vague sense of "wisdom" but in the hard facts of science."

Márët Ánne Sara installed electrical cables from floor to ceiling in the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, weaving reindeer hides through taut wires like ladder rungs. The work juxtaposes industrial electrical infrastructure and natural materials to challenge conventional definitions of power. The installation highlights that energy infrastructures, though hidden from urban view, profoundly affect Sápmi and other remote ecologies. Sara references her family's reindeer-herding heritage and the impacts of climate change, mining, and power projects on that way of life. The title Goavve names an extreme-weather phenomenon that leaves reindeer unable to reach food, framing Indigenous ecological knowledge as rigorous, scientific understanding.

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