This website uses cookies. Read more about our cookie/privacy policy.

Accept and Close

The Sheffield culture guide written by in-the-know locals

Migration Matters Festival

Migration Matters 2024, photo by Smart Banda

In 2007 Sheffield became the UK’s first City of Sanctuary – a place that welcomes asylum-seekers and refugees, that offers a hand to people in need of safety. Held around Refugee Week each June, Migration Matters Festival is a celebration of diversity and the positive impact migration and refugees have in Sheffield.

The festival launched in 2016, the year of the Brexit referendum and Syrian refugee crisis. Each year the Migration Matters programme brings communities together over fantastic, globe-spanning variety of theatre, music, dance, workshops, exhibitions, and more.

Come back soon for dates and details of Migration Matters 2026.

You might also like...

Jo Peel

Capturing stories of cities in paint.

New Horizons: Growing Sheffield’s Art Collection

Sat. 18 October 2025 — Sun. 25 January 2026

Millennium Gallery

Sheffield’s art collection has evolved since it was founded 150 years ago. This exhibition presents highlights of artworks that have joined the collection in the last 10 years. By Lubna Chowdhary, Grayson Perry, Bridget Riley, Marlene Smith and more.

Gage Gallery

Sitting above a factory, wonderfully illuminated by skylights, Gage is run by Kelham Island Art Collective (KIAC). It puts on shows by its members, who include painters, sculptors, stone carvers and textile artists, as well as other local artists.

Andy Cropper

Bus stops, tram tracks, alleyways. Andy Cropper takes these ordinary, unremarkable, utilitarian places – the sorts of places we pass every day – and turns them into quietly, almost eerily beautiful oil paintings.