Tarek Atoui composes a new language of sound for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall

Sound becomes a physical presence in Hold, Tarek Atoui’s latest Hyundai Commission for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in London. On view from October 13th, 2026 to April 11th, 2027, the installation combines traditional instruments, experimental technologies and sculptural forms in a shifting composition shaped by air, vibration and the movement of visitors.

Suspended bamboo pipes, Korean drums, gongs and elongated Uzbek karnai horns form an unconventional orchestra. Long textiles respond to air currents, generating bass tones through conductive paint and electronic systems, while stones along the floor allow visitors to feel vibrations through their surfaces. Microphones capture both the instruments and the hall’s ambient sounds, feeding them into custom software that continually reshapes the acoustic environment.

An orchestra between earth and sky

Atoui’s installation draws on more than two decades of research and collaboration with musicians, instrument-makers, engineers and researchers across East Asia, West and Central Asia, and Europe. Ancient instrument traditions meet electronic experimentation, while sculptural objects become sound-producing structures.

Developed with architecture studio Arthur Mamou-Mani, several elongated horns use a composite of sugar resin and bamboo dust. Elsewhere, textiles supplied by Satoshi Kondo, designer of ISSEY MIYAKE’s women’s line, carry conductive paint that sends a low electric current to a synthesiser. Their movement, influenced by airflow and humidity, produces shifting bass tones.

The work has no fixed musical identity or prescribed route. Visitors can pause beside the stones, move among the instruments or listen from different points across the hall. Drawing on memories of Mediterranean courtyards and vine-covered canopies, Atoui imagines the space as a place for gathering, listening and exchange.

Live performances will extend the installation throughout its six-month run. The opening sessions on October 16th and 17th, 2026 feature Atoui alongside Emptyset, Mazen Kerbaj, Kenichi Iwasa and Aya Metwalli, whose experimental approaches to voice, electronics and instruments will add new dimensions to the work.

One hall, many artistic worlds

Since Tate Modern opened in 2000, its vast industrial Turbine Hall has offered artists a rare opportunity to work at architectural scale. The Hyundai Commission, established in 2014, has become a platform for ambitious installations, with the partnership now extended until 2036.

Previous commissions have explored radically different ways of inhabiting the space. Olafur Eliasson’s The Weather Project (2003) filled the hall with an artificial sun and fine mist, while Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus (2019–20) used monumental fountain imagery to confront histories of empire, slavery and power. In 2021, Anicka Yi’s In Love With the World introduced floating machines known as aerobes, suggesting an uncanny ecosystem of artificial life.

Atoui adds a sonic dimension to this history, making the building’s acoustics, air currents and visitors integral to the composition. Hold gives the Turbine Hall another identity while retaining its capacity for collective experience: a place where architecture becomes an instrument and listening opens up new ways of encountering art.