Amazing work goes on behind university walls. New ideas constantly bounce from one laboratory or seminar room to the next. With a little help from Sheffield's creative community, that work and those ideas are let loose in the city throughout the Festival of the Mind.
Every other autumn, academic and creative minds from Sheffield come together to host exhibitions, talks, screenings, performances and more, in venues across the city.
Festival of the Mind 2026 highlights:
How Could I Forget?
Songs inspired by dementia, memory and family, and an interactive music workshop using technology created with people living with dementia.
An evening of way/mark/ing
Explore films and artworks uncovering Sheffield’s radical Black history and hear how Black creatives are working with archives to shape how stories and spaces are remembered.
Right Up My Street
Discover the stories behind Sheffield’s street names as Slambarz performers explore how empire, slavery and colonialism have shaped the city’s history.
The Sound of the Crowd
Discover what happens when the public helps train an AI music model. The Black Dog bring The Sound of the Crowd to life in a live demonstration and audience Q&A.
Re-Playing Heritage: Theatre and Remembrance
Discover Sheffield’s Jewish heritage through theatre, music and storytelling as young people revive the legacy of the Maccabi Players and bring a chapter of the city’s past back to the stage.
Exhibitions at Yorkshire Artspace: Persistence Works
Topics include how electricity could help detect mouth cancer, how funghi could help scientists build new links between the human brain and technology, art created by men together around loneliness, pressure and vulnerability. You can also step inside a giant phonebox and hear stories from Barnsley told by local people, and create your own colourful butterfly to add to an interactive exhibit on conservation.
Exhibitions at Millennium Gallery
Exhibits will include a VR journey through nearly 200 years of anatomy education, ceramic art exploring ageing, a view of Sheffield through a bee’s eyes, and film, animation, archive footage and an immersive sound looking at Sheffield’s industrial past and low carbon future.
- Featured in
- Sheffield Festivals Guide
