Sheffield Drawings

These drawings were done in a single evening and morning before a conference I attended. Sheffield is an appealing city with a vibrant arts scene, particularly in music and film. My aimless wandering uncovered these characters who seemed iconic of the somewhat less savoury aspects of the city. In fact, like many northern cities I have visited, Sheffield has a significant number of vacant shops and depressed areas butting right up against areas that have had cash infusions bolstering the arts and shopping districts. This partial gentrification is typical of cities that are very much in the throws of economic and cultural change. Too often these changes elevate a very small and privileged few. The psychic tension between the industrial city of old and the new, incentivised, flatpack cultural identity thrust upon these cities is often absurd. Sheffield was a city trying very hard. I wasn’t there long enough to figure out for whom that effort was focused.