VERSE 2026 Returns to The Arts House at the Old Parliament in Jan 2026

Literature comes alive through art, music and collaboration at Singapore’s civic and cultural heart – The Arts House at the Old Parliament.

Venue: The Arts House at the Old Parliament
Dates: 9 - 31 Jan 2025
Admission: Free with paid activities

The Arts House at the Old Parliament will once again transform into a vibrant literary playground as VERSE 2026 returns from 9 to 31 January 2026. This year’s edition features more than 15 programmes – including two exciting commissions – and brings together over 18 partners across fully accessible venues, ensuring VERSE remains open to audiences of all ages and backgrounds.

Families can look forward to immersive installations, collaborative performances or digital innovation.

Light Projections and Luminous Installation

Get your cameras ready as The Arts House façade becomes a storytelling canvas with light projections, Larut’s Tears and Start Here: From Every Vantage Point. 

Families can also step into brumblings, a luminous outdoor installation that turns the lawn at The Arts House into a tactile playground.The interactive artwork invites you to explore the messy, in-between moments of expression, where letters bump into each other and meanings happily misbehave. With playfully reimagined alphabet blocks you can assemble and pull apart like clouds, audiences are encouraged to poke at language and discover new possibilities along the way.

Ticketed Experience

Neural Echoes: Enter the Sleep Lab by Tusitala and Artwave Studio plunges you into SomniTech’s experimental trials in this interactive, technology‐driven theatre experience adapted from Victor Fernando R. Ocampo’s Book of Red Shadows.

Set within a fictional sleep research facility, participants enter undercover as test subjects in an ongoing experiment where previous participants have gone missing. Guided by sound, spatial design, and subtle choice-making, the experience invites reflection on sleep, technology, and collective decision-making long after audiences leave the room.

This 50‐minute adventure explores how sound shapes consciousness in a near‐future world of impossible choices. Tickets are $40 per person or $216 for a bundle of 6 tickets, and is eligible for the SG Culture Pass Credits.

Note that this experience is suited for 13+ and preferably for families with older kids 18 and above. 

A Showcase of Singapore Literature 

Presented in partnership with the National Library Board, Read on the Go features 16 stories hidden in plain sight – each revealing the strength within us. These tales speak of being unheard and the moments when the ordinary turns extraordinary – when we listen, share and dream.

The installation showcases Singapore Literature in English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, reminding us that power is always within reach.

An Art Exhibition from ART:DIS

Presented by ART:DIS (Arts & Disability Singapore) in conjunction with VERSE, Turning Points 3 is the third edition of a landmark exhibition platforming emerging neurodiverse artists and their journeys of transformation. Guided by established mentors, the artists present new works that reflect resilience, creativity, and personal growth, offering fresh ways of encountering identity and lived experience through art.

A Playful Look at Language

As part of Light to Night in conjunction with VERSE 2026, The Looking Glass of Language
by Amanda Tan and Irsyad Ishak is an installation delves into the written word as both communication and discovery. Using anagrams and motion, it invites viewers to interact with shifting projections of letters and symbols. As patterns rearrange dynamically, audiences uncover fresh meanings and interpretations, revealing the fluidity and playfulness of language.

Explore the History of Publishing

At SWF x SG60 Homage – Behind the Pages: Evolution of Publishing in Singapore, attendees can explore the history of publishing in Singapore with – from missionary presses of the 1800s to the post‐independence boom that shaped a nation of readers. Commissioned under SG60 Homage by Singapore Writers Festival 2025 to mark Singapore’s 60 years of independence, this exhibition spotlights the decade that laid the foundation for a homegrown industry and honours the pioneers who enriched our literary landscape.

For more information on VERSE programmes and ticketing information, visit https://artshousegroup.sg/verse-2026