tarek atoui turns tate modern’s turbine hall into a giant experimental orchestra

TAREK ATOUI TRANSFORMS TATE MODERN’S TURBINE HALL

The vast industrial interior of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall is about to find its own voice. Lebanese artist and composer Tarek Atoui takes over the London museum’s iconic space with a large-scale sound installation opening on October 13th, 2026. Created for the 11th Hyundai Commission, the site-specific work brings together experimental musical instruments, sculptural structures, and acoustic experiences that extend beyond conventional listening. Rather than simply filling the hall with music, Atoui approaches the architecture itself as an instrument, exploring how sound can travel through space, materials, and the human body.

Born in Beirut in 1980 and currently based in Paris, Atoui has spent more than two decades challenging the boundaries between music, sculpture, and performance. His practice revolves around the invention and reinvention of musical instruments, often developed alongside craftspeople, engineers, composers, and fellow artists. Glass, water, ceramics, and unconventional mechanical systems frequently appear in his work, producing sounds through touch, movement, breath, or vibration. The resulting installations invite audiences to experience music as something physical and spatial, rather than something that simply reaches the ears.

INSTRUMENTS RESPOND TO THE TURBINE HALL’S ARCHITECTURE

For his latest commission, Atoui has developed four families of instruments selected for their relationship with the Turbine Hall’s monumental proportions and reverberating acoustics. Among them are traditional Asian sheng instruments, activated through computer-controlled air systems, and oversized versions of Central Asian karnai horns produced using 3D printing. Large Korean drums introduce another acoustic dimension, while specially developed textiles function as experimental sound-generating devices. Together, these instruments combine centuries-old musical traditions with contemporary fabrication techniques, forming an unconventional orchestra in which the distinction between sculpture and sound equipment becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.

Particularly intriguing are the large fabric elements developed in collaboration with Satoshi Kondo and Issey Miyake. Coated with conductive graphite paint, the textiles act as oscillators, producing sounds through their movement within the hall. Elsewhere, stone slabs containing speakers transmit vibrations directly through their surfaces, allowing visitors to physically feel sonic frequencies. These elements reflect Atoui’s longstanding interest in listening beyond hearing, informed in part by his collaborations with deaf and hard-of-hearing communities. In this orchestra, the body becomes another way of listening.

TAREK ATOUI EXPLORES LISTENING AS A COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCE

The installation also challenges the relationship between the artwork and its surroundings. Rather than treating the Turbine Hall as a neutral container, Atoui draws on its height, reverberation, and atmospheric conditions to shape the composition itself. Acoustic and electronic sounds interact with the building’s industrial character, while the instruments’ physical presence establishes a visual landscape of pipes, drums, textiles, and resonating surfaces. Catherine Wood, Interim Director of Tate Modern, notes that architectural space plays an important role in Atoui’s investigation of sound and vibration, making the museum’s vast public interior a particularly compelling setting for his work.

Performance and collaboration are equally central to the commission. More than 40 musicians are expected to engage with the installation throughout its six-month run, introducing improvisation and new sonic arrangements into the space. Their contributions will allow the work to evolve rather than remain a fixed composition. This open-ended approach reflects Atoui’s understanding of music as a shared activity, in which the relationships between instruments, performers, architecture, and audiences matter as much as the sounds themselves. A museum installation with no definitive soundtrack, then.

CURATED BY NABILA ABDEL NABI AND DINA AKHMADEEVA

Atoui’s project marks the 11th edition of the Hyundai Commission, an annual initiative inviting international artists to create site-specific works for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. Since its launch, the series has welcomed more than 19 million visitors, providing a platform for ambitious artistic experiments within one of London’s most recognizable cultural spaces. The partnership between Tate and Hyundai Motor, established in 2014 and recently extended until 2036, continues to support installations that challenge conventional approaches to contemporary art and public participation.

Curated by Nabila Abdel Nabi and Dina Akhmadeeva, Hyundai Commission: Tarek Atoui will be open to the public from October 13th, 2026, through April 11th, 2027, with free admission. Through an evolving arrangement of instruments, materials, and live performances, the artist proposes a different way of navigating the museum: one in which sound can be seen, felt, and experienced collectively. For a space accustomed to monumental visual gestures, Atoui’s intervention suggests that some of the most interesting things happening in the Turbine Hall may not need to be seen at all.

project info:

name: Hyundai Commission: Tarek Atoui

artist: Tarek Atoui | @studiotarekatoui

location: Tate Modern, London | @tate

dates: October 13th, 2026 – April 11th, 2027