10 years of Migration Matters Festival

This summer, Sheffield celebrated the 10th edition of Migration Matters Festival. Taking place during the 3rd week of June, that same week as Refugee Week, it is a culmination of both Sheffield’s long history of supporting migration, as the first City of Sanctuary in the UK, as well as the cultural value that migrant communities bring to their host cities and countries. In this piece our Sara, reflects on the continued importance of the largest Refugee Week festival in the UK. 

In an increasingly divisive environment, Migrant Matters Festival aims to showcase the diversity of Sheffield’s local migrant community, and platforming its creatives; people who rarely genuinely are given the opportunity to shape the artistic and cultural landscape of the places they live in. The festival has highlighted works and performances from both renowned artists on an international scale, seeing the likes of Benjamin Zepaniah and Nikesh Shukla, as well as hosting community celebrations, with a strong emphasis on offering a voice and a space to those most vulnerable, platforming refugees and those who have experienced displacement, detention, or the UK’s asylum system. It is important that in the midst of harsher public speech and more punitive changes to the immigration system, the festival is putting front and centre the country’s diverse artistic environment by platforming and advocating for exactly those so easily lost in the midst of an increasingly more complicated and complex immigration process. 

The week brought together tens of events across the city, spanning book launches, concerts and theatre shows, workshops, cultural cooking clubs, comedy nights, pop-up zine libraries, international film screenings and community get-togethers, as well as staging queer artists, calling attention to migrant children’s voices, and facilitating the communion of the local and international communities within safe spaces. The locations are also telling, as Migration Matters Festival partners with key venues across Sheffield, from free to access public spaces for learning and community green spaces, to independent trading markets, African theatres and the City of Sanctuary centre in the city itself. 

Migration is a complex matter, and deeply personal to those experiencing it. It leaves people with unique cultural backgrounds, with different skills, and diverse stories to share, always at the intersection of nations, identities and histories. Bringing to light the works of such individuals can only enrich the experience of all involved, in UK’s cultural scene, as well as in local communities.

You can read more about Migration Matters Festival on their website and follow their socials for an update on next year’s plans and lineup so you can join the celebration of migration: https://www.migrationmattersfestival.co.uk/