StoryFest Singapore showcases the transformative power of stories that connect communities to place, heritage, and each other. Produced by The Storytelling Centre Limited, the festival is now in its ninth year and has evolved into an innovative outdoor roving experience that activates Singapore's public artworks and heritage spaces. These immersive storytelling journeys breathe new life into our urban landscape while celebrating storytelling as both an art form and cultural tradition.

Current Programming and Innovation

The festival currently presents site-specific storytelling experiences, particularly through its signature “Story Walk” format — an outdoor roving storytelling trail created in response to a commission by the Civic District for their public art installations, “Benchmarks.” Moving forward, the festival continues to innovate with “Story Scape” (2026), developed in collaboration with The Everyday Museum (Singapore Art Museum), further expanding the integration of storytelling with contemporary art practices.

These immersive walking experiences invite audiences to rediscover familiar urban spaces through stories that weave local narratives with folklore, creating meaningful dialogue between contemporary public art, heritage sites, and the oral storytelling tradition. The current format includes participatory hands-on experiences that blend storytelling with visual arts components. The festival also features workshops and presentations by field practitioners exploring the broader applications of storytelling in different contexts and communities.

Festival History and Evolution

Since its inaugural edition in 2017, StoryFest has demonstrated adaptability while maintaining its core mission. The festival was co-presented with Arts House Limited during its foundational years (2017–2022), with The Arts House (The Old Parliament House) serving as the primary venue and creative base for all productions during this period. Through this venue partnership, The Arts House hosted live indoor performances featuring international and local artists during these early years. These editions explored annual themes including “Stories for Change” (2017), “Be Legendary” (2018), “Make Believe” (2019), “The Heart of Story” (2020), “ReStory” (2021), and “Story Threads” (2022).

During these formative years, StoryFest featured two essential programming platforms for local talent development: The Young Storytellers Showcase, which presented emerging storytelling talents, and The Singapore Showcase, featuring local storytellers and spoken word artists. The festival also included family programming with participatory experiences, and workshops and masterclasses that contributed to the capacity building and artistic growth of the broader storytelling scene. These platforms were crucial when establishing Singapore's storytelling ecosystem required greater focus on talent development, awareness creation, and professional support for young storytellers and local storytelling artists.

The festival revealed exceptional digital storytelling capabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic, successfully pivoting to innovative online formats that reached global audiences in 2020 and 2021, followed by hybrid programming in 2022, including digital innovations such as The Book of Tales (2021) and the Story Talk interview series (2022).

From 2023 onwards, StoryFest evolved into its current outdoor roving format in response to a commission by the Civic District, developing the Story Walk series that transforms public art installations into storytelling destinations. This period showcased StoryFest’s ability to adapt traditional oral arts across multiple mediums – from intimate theatre to digital platforms to public art integration – while maintaining artistic integrity and community connection.

Creative Leadership

StoryFest Singapore was founded and continues to be led by creative producer Kamini Ramachandran, a pioneer in the field of oral storytelling in Asia. Her creative vision has evolved from seeing storytellers as “dispellers of worries” who help people “navigate the world we live in” to her current vision of spaces as a “palimpsest of stories – layers upon layers of narratives.” Her leadership philosophy has guided the festival's evolution from nurturing Singapore’s storytelling ecosystem to pioneering site-specific experiences that transform urban spaces into stages for collective memory. As she reflects, “Between stone and water, past and present, our stories find their voice."

Mission and Cultural Legacy

The Storytelling Centre Limited, which produces StoryFest, believes that stories are living repositories of Singapore’s multicultural legacy, where oral traditions of folktales, mythology, legends, and personal narratives serve as vital channels for preserving and developing our diverse heritage.

The festival has showcased storytelling talents from around the world during its earlier editions, providing opportunities for cultural awareness and sharing of global narratives while ensuring the sustainability of storytelling as an art form through community development and mentorship.

Through its evolution from intimate theatre presentations to digital innovation to outdoor public art integration, StoryFest continues to invite audiences to experience the power of stories, be transported on the wings of imagination, and discover how ancient oral traditions remain relevant in contemporary urban life. The festival serves as a bridge between individual stories and collective memory, ensuring that storytelling thrives as both cultural tradition and dynamic contemporary art form.