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.

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The Actors Works Play Reading: A Hero's Welcome by Winsome Pinnock

Sat. 7 February 2026

Unit 13, Harland Works, 70 John Street, S2 4QU

A relaxed play reading, open to all.

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.

Kaleidoscope Talk: Practising Art, Practising Access with Helen Stratford

Thu. 22 January 2026

In the 90-minute workshop, Helen will focus on her definition of access within her art practice, which in the last few years has increasingly responded to her lived experience of a chronic pain condition.

Not Truly Dead

Wed. 11 February 2026

Drama Studio

Three tales of the restless dead, by the master of the English ghost story M. R. James.

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