City of Sanctuary Sheffield is proud to present Interior Landscapes, a powerful participatory photography and storytelling project that documents the everyday interior spaces of asylum accommodation in Sheffield and Rotherham.
The project was co-produced with photographer and community artist Jack Owen who worked with people seeking sanctuary curate the photographs of their living spaces. The accompanying text was produced by the participants at a workshop held at The Sanctuary following the shoot.
Each photo explores the complex emotions attached to everyday objects either brought from home or acquired after arrival. The photos and accompanying text explore themes of home, belonging, displacement and hope.
Here is how one participant powerfully describes what her teapot means to her:
This is not just a teapot.
Every morning, it boils water, but it also awakens memories.
The sound of tea being prepared takes me back to a place I can no longer reach. It reminds me of home, of family, of laughter around a table, and of people I still carry in my heart.
Sometimes, when everything feels unfamiliar, a simple cup of tea becomes a bridge between my past and my present.
This teapot has witnessed quiet tears, silent prayers, lonely evenings, and hopeful mornings.
It reminds me that even when life changes completely, some things remain with us forever.
The warmth of tea.
The memory of home.
And the love we never leave behind.
Behind every photograph is a person seeking sanctuary. Although they are never visible, their presence and personality are deeply felt from the personal objects they surround themselves with.
Several scenes suggest comfort, sanctuary and home, yet hint at deep and painful reminders of all that has been lost. Hand-drawn pictures and religious icons and reflect traditions, people and places left behind. Carefully tended plants and neat English phrases on Post-it notes suggest efforts to bring order and calm to lives defined by upheaval and uncertainty.
Couple with the texts written by the participants, ordinary objects take on a new meanings and significance.
Standing in a room devoid of any ornamentation, one participant fetched the single decorative object he owned – a star-shaped candle in a glass holder – and carefully placed it near the open window on his windowsill.
Both the candle and window were deeply meaningful for him after many years in the asylum system, and having experienced financial difficulties and multiple relocations during that time:
The lit candle represents my life slowly being consumed. Sometimes the time goes fast, sometimes slowly. I feel pain, memories of my land and of my family.
The candle also represents my asylum claim. I feel I am wasting my life.
The open window is very important to me. In the shared house we are not allowed to keep the door open, but I can open my window. It brings fresh air, new life, hope and my freedom.
Interior Landscapes is about human connection, about being heard and being seen. It offers alternative representations around an issue that is so often misunderstood and misrepresented, the nuance and human realities lost amidst point scoring and the rise of ill-informed and divisive anti-immigration rhetoric.
It can also show how stories of forced migration can be told ethically, with humanity, dignity and compassion.
Our work
Interior Landscapes was only made possible by the relationships and deep trust built over many years by City of Sanctuary Sheffield’s Advocacy and Systems Change team.
Working alongside people seeking sanctuary, the Advocacy and Systems Change team works to transform the systems that shape people’s lives, campaigning for an asylum system that is compassionate, fair and humane.
The team listens to lived experiences, amplifies voices too often ignored and advocates for long-term change at both local and national levels. Through regular visits to asylum accommodation and close collaboration with residents, they have documented concerns about housing standards, safeguarding, access to healthcare and the impacts of forced dispersal, while supporting people to challenge decisions that affect their wellbeing and rights.
Their evidence and campaigning have helped bring these issues into public debate. In 2025, City of Sanctuary Sheffield, together with South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group (SYMAAG), submitted written evidence to the UK Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee inquiry into asylum accommodation, drawing on years of frontline work and the experiences shared by people living in both hotel and dispersal housing.
This exhibition emerges from that work: an invitation to witness spaces usually kept out of sight, and to reflect on the systems that shape the lives of those who inhabit them.
City of Sanctuary Sheffield
City of Sanctuary Sheffield is an independent charity working in solidarity with people seeking sanctuary. Founded in Sheffield in 2005, it was the first branch of the City of Sanctuary movement, which has since grown to include more than 70 groups across the UK.
Our aim is to create a city that is safe and welcoming to all. We do this by helping people seeking sanctuary navigate the system through our services – The Sanctuary, Multiagency Drop-In and SPRING – and working alongside them to advocate for an asylum system that is compassionate, fair and humane.
Next year, City of Sanctuary Sheffield will help host Sanctuary 27, a dispersed, year-long, community-led programme of events marking 20 years since Sheffield was named the UK’s first City of Sanctuary. The programme will celebrate Sheffield’s unique history of welcome and reaffirm our shared commitment to being a place of safety and welcome.
Support the cause
If you would like to support City of Sanctuary Sheffield’s work alongside people seeking sanctuary, please consider making a donation. Your contribution helps us provide practical support, advocate for a fairer asylum system and create a city that is safe and welcoming for all.
Every donation, no matter the size, helps us continue this work and stand in solidarity with people seeking sanctuary in Sheffield.
