London's Turbine Hall has been turned into a vast, walk-through instrument. Hyundai Commission: Tarek Atoui: Hold, the 11th annual Hyundai Commission at Tate Modern, opened on 13 October 2026 and runs until 11 April 2027 — and it's free to experience.
Lebanese artist and composer Tarek Atoui has spent two decades building instruments and staging sound experiments with musicians, engineers and makers across Asia and Europe. For this commission he has filled the hall with an evolving ensemble: shengs (Chinese and Southeast Asian mouth organs), Korean drums, Uzbek horns and custom-built electronics. A metal karnai — a ceremonial brass trumpet from Uzbekistan — hangs above the Turbine Hall ramp, flanked by two 3D-printed horns that echo its shape. At the far end, drum skins, gongs, stones and 20-metre-long textiles hang among a bamboo network, with wind pushed through the shengs by a computer-controlled motor.
The point is that you don't just listen with your ears. Atoui wants visitors to feel sound through the whole body — sitting or lying on lithophone-like stones under warm lights, watching how the hall's height and airflows shape what you hear. Microphones hidden in the installation sample both the instruments and the ambient noise of the crowds, with software looping everything back as shifting layers of the composition. No two visits will sound alike.
There's a live programme too. Over the six-month run, musicians from London and abroad — instrumentalists, electronic artists, collectives and labels — will periodically 'plug into' the installation and use it as a sound system for performances.
The commission also marks a milestone: Hyundai Motor and Tate have extended their partnership to 2036, making it one of the longest corporate commitments in the museum's history since it began in 2014. Past commissions have pulled in more than 21.6 million visitors, including Kara Walker's Turbine Hall fountain and Anicka Yi's drifting machine jellyfish.
If you're in London this autumn or winter, this is an easy win: it's central, free, and unlike a typical gallery visit — more like wandering into a strange, gentle concert that's always mid-performance. Pair it with the rest of Tate Modern and a walk along the South Bank.
