Share Your Story   

Everyone has a story to tell. What’s yours? 

This May, everyone is invited to share their story.

The Strangers Project, an internationally celebrated project that has brought more than 100,000 handwritten stories to life in exhibits around the globe, is coming to Santa Barbara. For the first time in its nearly 20-year history, The Strangers Project will be on the West Coast as a community activation for Santa Barbara Literary Festival in partnership with Friends of State Street.  

“The Strangers Project fits so well at a literary festival because it flips the usual dynamic — instead of readers coming to writers, every visitor becomes an author,” says The Strangers Project founder Brandon Doman. “The project is a living archive of anonymous stories from real people, and bringing it to the inaugural festival means the community isn’t just celebrating literature, they’re creating it together.” At its core, The Strangers Project collects handwritten stories from people of every age; nothing is ever digitally recorded or mailed, but captured in the moment. 

With this exhibit, which debuts May 2, the entire community is invited to participate in the inaugural Santa Barbara Literary Festival. “The Strangers Project is a natural soulmate for the Santa Barbara Literary Festival,” says festival cofounder and author Lorissa Rinehart. “Both believe that a single honest story, told in the right space, has the power to dissolve the distances between people and remind us how profoundly human we all are.” 

The project is the latest initiative from Friends of State Street, the nonprofit organization that launched in 2022 to celebrate Santa Barbara’s downtown. The so-called “band of friends” has launched a series of projects, including Vacant to Vibrant and State Street Loop Shuttle Program, all of which showcase the community, talents, and collaboration our beautiful city has to offer.  

“As an organization, we wanted to celebrate [Santa Barbara Literary Festival] with an activation that aligns both with our mission and our newest pilot, Space to Share,” says Friends of State Street founder and board president Sharon Rich. “[In] bringing The Strangers Project [to Santa Barbara], it basically allows us to honor the festival in a meaningful way, and introduce an internationally recognized experience rooted in storytelling and belonging.”

Art & Soul Gallery will become a safe space for sharing stories. Open to everyone, the public event will launch during the literary festival and continue during gallery hours through May 10. Finding a home at Art & Soul — a locally owned gallery in the heart of downtown — makes the partnership even sweeter. “At Art & Soul, we’ve always believed that a gallery can be more than a place to simply view art — it can be a space where people feel seen,” says Kim McIntyre, gallerist at Art & Soul. “Hosting The Strangers Project reflects our belief that art can create meaningful human connection.”

The Strangers Project will offer everyone from the community to share their handwritten story at Art & Soul Gallery on State Street. Hosted from Saturday, May 2 to Sunday, May 3, and again Thursday, May 7, to Sunday, May 10, from noon to 5 p.m. Additionally, gallery hours will extend for 1st Thursday on May 7 from 5-8 p.m. To learn more about The Strangers Project, visit strangersproject.com. More information on the gallery can be found at artandsoulsb.com.