Voilah! 2026 spans immersive ocean exhibition and Islamic objects from the Louvre

SINGAPORE – Annual French cultural event Voilah! France Singapore Festival returns on April 25, once more taking to the stage, concert halls and galleries in May and June.

This time, its 26 programmes also extend to an immersive exhibition on ocean research at the Science Centre Singapore, created in partnership with the acclaimed Tara Ocean Foundation, whose schooner Tara has spent more than 20 years exploring and studying the oceans.

As with four years ago at Ion Orchard, Voilah! has also brought in oysters, cheeses and wines for a French food market to be held at VivoCity on April 25 and 26.

This continues the French embassy’s partnership with mall developer Mapletree after Singaporean photographer Melisa Teo’s exhibition at HarbourFront mall in 2025.

The Science Centre and VivoCity take Voilah! events outside Central Business District arts venues, maintaining the reach of a festival that regularly sees over 50,000 participants, both locals and expatriates.

French ambassador to Singapore Stephen Marchisio says: “When I say culture, I mean everything. I have a picture here of taking President (Emmanuel) Macron to Lau Pa Sat.”

President Macron was in town for a state visit in 2025, during which he visited Teo’s exhibition – then on its first leg along Anderson Bridge – with Prime Minister Lawrence Wong.

A platform like Voilah! allows Singaporeans to know the French better and is also an important avenue for French businesses to gain exposure to the Singaporean market, says Mr Marchisio. This is especially true with the food and drink retailers brought in for the event, with the industry one of the biggest earners for the French economy here.

Mr Marchisio adds: “For French people, this part of the world is a bit far, so we need to bring French culture and expertise in all sectors.”

He has a slight complaint about Singaporeans’ impressions of France: “Singaporeans are well travelled, but their image of France is still very past-oriented, very romantic. So we also try to bring these kinds of new messages – you can also come to us for business and for technology.”

The arts events are niftily distributed across existing heavyweight festivals on the arts calendar, so audiences might experience them more organically without knowing that the French Embassy has lent its muscle.

The Singapore International Festival of Arts in May, for instance, has two highly anticipated acts under the Voilah! umbrella: Lacrima, which turns the stage into a bustling workshop floor for the making of an English princess’ wedding dress; and Planet [wanderer], a dramatic collaboration between French-Belgian choreographer Damien Jalet and Japanese visual artist Kohei Nawa.

Later in June, the Asian Civilisations Museum is presenting more than 100 masterpieces from the Musee du Louvre’s Islamic art collection from the Mughal, Safavid and Ottoman empires.

Ambassador Marchisio says: “It’s quite timely in the current situation and also very important in the kind of Peranakan approach of Singapore.” The Peranakan ethos has been an open-ended cross-cultural synthesis of aesthetic influences.

This is the first time the collection is shown in South-east Asia, possible only with the renovation of some of the Louvre’s galleries.

There is a strong pillar of music programmes in 2026. The Jazz Association (Singapore), led by musicians Jeremy Monteiro and Chok Kerong with French trumpeter Nicolas Folmer and singer Andrea Caparros, pay tribute to the legendary Miles Davis and his love affair with Paris on his 100th birth anniversary.

Prominent Paris-based quartet Quatuor Modigliani revisits Ludwig van Beethoven in three concerts at the Esplanade Recital Studio, while the Singapore Symphony Orchestra curates a night of French music as part of a farewell series for departing music director Hans Graf, who has described French music as his first, indulgent love.

The Orchestra of the Music Makers is also working with former music director of France’s National Orchestra of Lille, Alexandre Bloch, to perform crowd-pleasing Sturm und Drang epics by Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich and Austro-Bohemian Gustav Mahler.

This is in addition to Danses de Reve, a Singapore Ballet premiere of creations by French choreographers Etienne Ferrere and Claire Voss, accompanied by an exhibition at the Alliance Francaise de Singapour proffering a behind-the-curtains look at the Paris Opera Ballet.

The embassy, in its annual curation of events, relies in part on evergreen ground-up demand and the partnerships it has built with cultural institutions here throughout the years.

For the visual arts, this has allowed them to gain a foothold in Prestige Gallery at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, the new Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery in Beach Road and Richard Koh Fine Art at Gillman Barracks, which will all show artists connected to France.

Twenty Singapore artists take on the Fauvist art movement at Alliance Francaise de Singapour, organised by gallery Mr Lim’s Shop Of Visual Treasures. Clementine de Forton Gallery reimagines the European grand tour from Singapore in Kim Yam Road near New Bahru.

From April 7 to 11, the embassy is also hosting 12 French cultural companies – active in fields from museum expertise to digital creation – in inaugural talks with Singapore counterparts, coordinated by its national agency Institut Francais, which promotes foreign cultural policy and Business France.

Called ICC Immersion, the programme has identified South-east Asia as a dynamic market harbouring opportunities for its arts companies to be “money makers”, against impressions of the arts as “money losers”.

They have already been put through a preparation bootcamp in France and will meet counterparts and investors here to discuss possible collaborations and be taken on site visits.

Says Mr Marchisio: “These companies reflect the diversity and excellence of our creative ecosystem, from sustainable architecture, heritage and VR/XR storytelling, to international music production, to UGC gaming.

“Their solutions address key regional priorities: museum development, digital innovation, smart urban design and new entertainment formats.”