Máret Ánne Sara at Tate Modern turns the gallery into a multisensory work—white walls, immersive sound, and carefully composed scents—reshaping how audiences encounter Sámi presence and storytelling.
At Tate Modern, Máret Ánne Sara arrives as something rarer than a conventional exhibition: a full sensory environment built to reorganize attention.
The work’s surface may read as stark—an installation conceived with a “white wall” fabrication approach—yet the experience quickly slips into something more intimate and bodily.. Instead of asking viewers to observe from a distance. the piece draws them toward a choreography of sound. light. and scent.. Electrical. lighting. and audiovisual systems work like a quiet engine. while interpretation and graphic design shape the way the story is approached.. The result is an atmosphere you don’t just look at; you enter.
Behind the technical list sits a deeper cultural intention.. Máret Ánne Sara is anchored in Sámi musical and narrative worlds. supported by an extensive network of soundscape contributors and storyscape collaborators.. Names appear across the credits—Mari Boine. Ánde Somby. Anne Marie Siri. John Andreas Utsi. and many others—suggesting a collective authorship rather than a single authorial “voice.” That matters in a museum context.. When a major institution stages a work that is built from many practitioners and traditions. the audience is pushed to consider authorship as communal. intergenerational. and embedded in place.
Listening becomes a space
The sound in Máret Ánne Sara is not incidental.. It is designed as a lived medium. moving through sections of the work with distinct soundscape titles—Vuoi Vuoi Mu. Diamántta Spáillit. Gilvve Gollát. and others—each functioning like a chapter with its own emotional temperature.. Sound design credits include Kristine Hansen, while the storyscape contributors broaden the palette of voices and sonic textures.. This layered approach turns Tate Modern from a container for art into a resonant room where listening feels like participation.
There’s a broader trend here in contemporary museums: multisensory installation art is increasingly used to challenge the idea that art consumption should be purely visual.. But what makes Máret Ánne Sara stand out is that the sensory expansion isn’t only aesthetic; it’s also cultural.. The piece doesn’t treat sound as decoration.. It treats sound as knowledge, as memory, and as an interface for encountering Sámi presence.
Scent and light: affective translation
The credits also reveal a rarely foregrounded element in mainstream gallery experiences: scent.. A perfumer and scent consultant are listed, and that detail changes the stakes.. Smell bypasses the intellect’s usual gatekeeping, landing directly in the body.. In a work like this. scent functions like affective translation—an additional language that can’t be fully paraphrased. only felt.
Light design contributes another layer.. With lighting credits and specific fixtures listed, the atmosphere is shaped with intention rather than ambience.. Viewers often describe immersive works through terms like “cozy” or “overwhelming. ” but Máret Ánne Sara leans toward something else: focused immersion.. The lighting and audiovisual installation appear arranged to guide attention without flattening complexity.
This is not “total artwork” in the abstract sense. It is a culturally grounded environment where technical craft serves narrative craft. The creative industry skill here is not just in spectacle; it’s in integration—how disciplines meet without losing their distinct textures.
Why it matters beyond Tate
Máret Ánne Sara carries a quiet editorial argument: cultural identity is not only represented through images or text. but also through infrastructures of making—how artists collaborate. how sound and voice are organized. and how the body experiences a work.. In many museum settings, minority traditions are sometimes treated as thematic content.. Here, Sámi musical and storytelling worlds are not “added”; they structure the whole experience.
For audiences, the impact is practical as much as poetic.. A multisensory installation changes accessibility patterns.. People who might struggle with strictly visual interpretation can engage through sound and scent. while others may find that the environment slows them down. encouraging more attentive participation.. It’s a subtle shift in cultural power: the work asks for a different kind of time from the viewer.
And for the museum itself, the work represents an ongoing shift in how institutions present contemporary cultural narratives.. When a major venue hosts an installation that relies on a network of practitioners—composerly. performative. technical. and interpretive—it models a form of curatorial responsibility.. The credits read like a map of collaboration, not a single spotlight.
There is also an international resonance in the approach.. Multisensory cultural projects are expanding globally, but the most compelling ones avoid generic immersion.. Máret Ánne Sara feels specific—rooted in names, voices, and soundscapes that are tied to living traditions.. In that specificity, the work becomes a kind of cultural bridge that doesn’t dilute its source.
The question the installation leaves with you is simple but hard to answer: what do you do after you’ve been taught to listen differently?. In a world where attention is constantly harvested. Máret Ánne Sara offers a counter-program—an invitation to experience cultural identity as something you enter. not something you merely view.