The craftsmanship of the city’s tradespeople and its rich history in steel is celebrated in a new exhibition at Yorkshire Artspace.

Work-Leisure features objects and artwork made by industrial workers in their spare time, and will be open at the gallery, based in Persistence Works on Brown Street, until April 12.

The curator of the exhibition, Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad, 45, knocked on over 100 doors along with co-producer Matthew Harle in order to gather the unique exhibits, made by plasterers, carpenters, joiners among other professions.

He said: “The project is based on chance encounters, word of mouth and social interaction.

“You get people who say, no, I just go home after work. Sometimes they’ll have something, or they’ll say, go and meet someone. It leaves you with a mish mash of things people have made.”

Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad, who initially trained in product design, highlighted the collaborative nature of his new exhibition, labelling it as “social design”.

He said “There’s a strong social aspect in Work-Leisure. I have an interest in designing for social benefits, not just commercial benefits.

“I’ve made a lot of friends during this project, there’s definitely a big social element to Work-Leisure.”

Mr Hashemi-Nezhad was particularly drawn to Sheffield due to its rich history in steelworks, and he hopes Work-Leisure can continue to move around the United Kingdom meeting more industrial workers with a passion for design.

He said: “It’s all dependent on funding. The vision is to do a few more cities and then we’ll conclude at the William Morris Gallery in London.

“We look for around 20 objects per city, and then the hope is we’ll build up an archive of over 100 different creations.”

The exhibition opened on the 20 March 2025, with over 60 people attending the preview.

The exhibition is open at Yorkshire Artspace, Persistence Works at 21 Brown Thursday – Saturday, 11am – 5pm with admission being free, and donations being accepted on the premises.

Mr Hashemi-Nezhad said: “We teamed up with Yorkshire Artspace. They have a lot of makers and they have really good projects. The venue is perfect, it looks really good so I’m super pleased. I couldn’t ask for more.”