Free sound sculpture fills Tate Modern's Turbine Hall until April

You can enter Tate Modern's Turbine Hall for free and hear a sound installation. It runs from 13 October 2026 to 11 April 2027. Warm lights and stones invite visitors to sit, lie or look up. The hall is open daily from 10.00 to 18.00.

The work is called Hyundai Commission: Tarek Atoui: Hold, and Tate describes a major new multisensory installation. Hyundai Motor Group calls it the 11th annual Hyundai Commission. It turns the hall into a sonic landscape, the group says. The group describes an orchestra that connects earth and sky.

My own sense of rhythm would need a very large hall to hide in.

What hangs in the hall

A metal karnai (a ceremonial brass trumpet from Uzbekistan) hangs above the ramp. Two 3D-printed horns hang with it. Drum skins, gongs, horns and textiles 20 metres long hang among bamboo and shengs (mouth organs from China and Southeast Asia). A computer-controlled motor channels wind through the network.

The 3D-printed horns use sugar resin and bamboo dust. The architecture firm Arthur Mamou-Mani made them with Atoui, Tate says. Satoshi Kondo, designer of ISSEY MIYAKE's women's line, provided the signature textiles.

How the sound is made

The hanging textiles are coated with conductive paint. The paint carries a low electric current to a synthesiser (an electronic instrument that makes sound). The bass tones shift with air currents and humidity. Microphones sample the instruments and the hall's ambient sound. Custom software plays these back as layers of the composition, the press release says.

Plan your visit

Free live performances run on 16 and 17 October, 19:00 to 20:30. Further dates are 13 and 27 November and 11 December. Then come 15 January, 19 February, 19 March and 2 April. Tate Modern Late is free on 27 November 2026, from 18:00 to 22:00.

Free audio description tours run from 11.00 to 12.00. Their dates are 18 November, 16 December, 20 January, 17 February and 17 March.

The installation is designed to change through participation and performance, Hyundai Motor Group says. Musicians will plug into it as a sound system. The lineup will include local and international artists and collectives.

The context

Tarek Atoui was born in Beirut in 1980 and is based in Paris. The commission is made possible by the partnership between Tate and Hyundai Motor. That partnership began in 2014 and now runs through 2036, Hyundai Motor Group says. The annual commission has drawn over 21.6 million visitors. Tate gives the same visitor total since the commission began.

Past works include Kara Walker's fountain and Anicka Yi's floating artificial lifeforms, the group says. Nabila Abdel Nabi and Dina Akhmadeeva are the curators. A book on the commission is due in February 2027.

Our view

We think free entry makes this an easy first visit, since the listing shows no charge. The set dates in the Tate listings let you pick a night with live music.

Would you visit?