Guest blog by: Ellen Beardmore, marketing lead at Migration Matters Festival
A Sheffield festival which brings communities together by celebrating international culture is to welcome its ‘best lineup ever’ this year.
Tickets for the city’s ninth Migration Matters Festival – which attracted 13,400 people last year and is part of Refugee Week – have gone on sale. Headliners for the nine-day arts festival in June include Grammy-nominated husband-and-wife musical duo, Amadou & Mariam, who performed their Afrobeat hits at Glastonbury last year.
Genre-hopping Swiss band Sirens of Lesbos and prize-winning poet Roger Robinson are also among the prominent performers confirmed so far.
Director Sam Holland said: “This year’s festival will include our best lineup yet. There is an increased focus on global music due to demand and after last year, where we achieved a new audience record with Kenyan band Sauti Sol. We’re also increasing our strand of exciting family events which introduce young people into the migration conversation with our second year of Mini MigMat. This is a programme curated by young people in the Youth Theatre of Sanctuary in partnership with SBC Theatre and The Montgomery Theatre. And the crucial theme of climate will also be expanded upon this year. We’re bringing back our Rapid Response event in collaboration with Ark Sheffield, Sheffield Theatres and Sheffield Hallam University, with an open call for new performances and creative work.”
More than 50 individual events will take place during the festival, which runs from June 14-22 at multiple Sheffield venues.
Their collective aim is to celebrate the positive impact migration, refugees and asylum seekers have in Sheffield, the country’s first City of Sanctuary.
Events include: a comedy night, thought-provoking theatre shows, interactive art exhibitions or installations, dance, drag and Latin American film screenings. Food Walk Hong Kong will take visitors on a journey of Asian flavours around Sheffield.
A live-streamed mass singalong with six Sheffield choirs in Meersbrook Park will also send a message of hope to war-ravaged Palestine.
Sam added: “Whether you want to discover new stories about people of colour throughout history in South Yorkshire, or dance to African drum beats in the city streets, the festival will have something for you. We are committed to give underrepresented communities a voice through our truly eclectic and diverse programme.”
Two new guest curators have also joined the festival alongside returning guest curator Howl Yuan, whose programme of work this year is called Land(scapes) They are hip hop and spoken word artist Otis Mensah, who was Sheffield’s first poet laureate in 2018. Their programme, Longerr Inheritances, will look at jazz experimentation and what it means to cross genres and artistic expectations as Black artists and artists of colour. Tasnim Siddiqa Amin will also explore the fascinating role of henna, and aim to elevate it as an art form in its own right, through her programme If Henna Could Speak.
All events at the festival are priced on a sliding scale – with many free – to increase accessibility and allow as many people as possible to attend.
The event is part of Refugee Week, which this year has the theme of our home.
It is funded by: Arts Council England, the University of Sheffield, the Evan Cornish Foundation and Sheffield Council.
Tickets for the opening and closing parties, as well as some headline events, are available to book now at migrationmattersfestival.co.uk.
Image credits:
– Festival headliners Amadou & Mariam
– Khula Arts will be leading African dance workshops at the festival