Tarek Atoui is a Lebanese sound artist and composer based in Paris known for his innovative approach to sound, performance, and instrument-making. His work explores the physicality of sound and the act of listening, creating immersive experiences that challenge traditional boundaries between artist, audience, and instrument.
We would like to advise visitors that the Tarek Atoui installation Souffle Continu in the Chapel will be closed to the public on Friday 20 March from 11.30am to 5.30pm to facilitate rehearsals; and on Saturday 21 March from 12noon to 5.30pm to facilitate a live performance. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.
Souffle Continu
Chapel: 21 February – 19 April 2026
Sunflowers
Gallery 3: 21 February – 19 July 2026
Tarek Atoui is a Lebanese sound artist and composer based in Paris known for his innovative approach to sound, performance, and instrument-making. His work explores the physicality of sound and the act of listening, creating immersive experiences that challenge traditional boundaries between artist, audience, and instrument. Atoui frequently collaborates with musicians, instrument makers, and people with diverse hearing abilities, emphasising inclusivity and experimentation.
Atoui’s exhibition at IMMA is presented in two phases, comprising an installation, titled Souffle Continu, in the Chapel that focuses on the tactile quality of the sound, vibration, and movement of “wind instruments”; and in the gallery spaces Sunflowers presents a series of works inspired by the rhythmic and material traditions of Korean drumming.
For the installation Souffle Continu, Atoui has created Wind Houses that link hearing, touch, and sight. These are listening and performance spaces which also serve as musical instruments. As is the case with a flute, air is divided by a bevelled board, thus producing low sounds that resonate throughout the body and in the surrounding space. The organs within the space are sculptural installations that combines research into church pipe organs with the sonic experiences of deaf people. It consists of a network of tubes which connect a computer with an air blower, and various organ modules which interact with each other in such a way that their sounds constantly adapt to each other.
In the gallery spaces Atoui’s new works Sunflowers are influenced by Korean drumming tradition, the spaces will be designed as both listening space and places for the audience to make their own material through workshops. Atoui’s work plays with improvisation, activation and listening that immerses the audiences in unprecedented sensory and cognitive experiences. His work opens up new channels of imagination and knowledge that are challenging and embrace experimentation.
The exhibition will be punctuated by a programme of live performances and workshops. Tarek Atoui will perform on 20 February as part of the exhibition launch. A second performance by invited musicians Natalia Beylis, Áine O’Dwyer, Meabh McKenna, and Willie Stewart takes place on 21 March.
Presented in association with the French Embassy in Ireland.
Tarek Atoui: Souffle Continu and Sunflowers
Feb 21 – Jul 19, 2026
IMMA / Chapel Gallery 3
Dublin, Ireland
