Home Making asks how we make home in different places, and how that knowledge is carried and shared, from our rooms to our cities, across borders, and through generations. The project explores how making, play, learning, and cooperation can become tools for belonging, purpose, and rest, particularly in times of change or uncertainty.
Commissioned by Arts Catalyst and presented at Exchange Place in Sheffield's Castlegate as part of Castlegate Festival 2025, the exhibition began with Housewarming, a series of workshops designed with Sofia Niazi and developed in conversation with a group of women connected to the neighbouring Andalus Community Centre. Some had recently arrived in the UK; others had long been part of the community. In time, they came together and named themselves Rajo, the Somali word for hope.
The workshops produced more than objects. They created a space where gathering, talking, and making together became a form of collective homemaking: not through bricks and mortar, but through gestures of warmth, kinship, and creativity.
The exhibition brought these processes into view. On display were handmade doormats crafted by the Rajo group, alongside a large-scale textile by Sofia Niazi inspired by her mother's garden, and a series of ceramic tile works by Sahra Hersi drawing on the symbols of openness, collaboration, and solidarity explored in the workshops. Nearby sat plates painted by the women, pieces holding memories, motifs, and fragments of places lived and imagined, shared in the process of getting to know one another.
The exhibition design was developed by Sahra Hersi, including the central gathering table and shelving unit shown in the installation. Conceived as a space for gathering as much as for display, the design invited visitors to sit, look, and linger.
Home Making also acknowledges the essential work of community organisations like Andalus Community Centre, whose support, friendship, and solidarity form the foundations of home for so many. The project concluded with the publication of two new essays by Sahra Hersi and Sofia Niazi, There is Room For You Here and Carrying a Thread.
Home Making ran from February to November 2025, with the exhibition on view from September. Supported by Arts Council England, Sheffield Church Burgesses Trust, JG Graves Charitable Trust, and Sheffield City Council.
Commissioned by Arts Catalyst and presented at Exchange Place in Sheffield's Castlegate as part of Castlegate Festival 2025, the exhibition began with Housewarming, a series of workshops designed with Sofia Niazi and developed in conversation with a group of women connected to the neighbouring Andalus Community Centre. Some had recently arrived in the UK; others had long been part of the community. In time, they came together and named themselves Rajo, the Somali word for hope.
The workshops produced more than objects. They created a space where gathering, talking, and making together became a form of collective homemaking: not through bricks and mortar, but through gestures of warmth, kinship, and creativity.
The exhibition brought these processes into view. On display were handmade doormats crafted by the Rajo group, alongside a large-scale textile by Sofia Niazi inspired by her mother's garden, and a series of ceramic tile works by Sahra Hersi drawing on the symbols of openness, collaboration, and solidarity explored in the workshops. Nearby sat plates painted by the women, pieces holding memories, motifs, and fragments of places lived and imagined, shared in the process of getting to know one another.
The exhibition design was developed by Sahra Hersi, including the central gathering table and shelving unit shown in the installation. Conceived as a space for gathering as much as for display, the design invited visitors to sit, look, and linger.
Home Making also acknowledges the essential work of community organisations like Andalus Community Centre, whose support, friendship, and solidarity form the foundations of home for so many. The project concluded with the publication of two new essays by Sahra Hersi and Sofia Niazi, There is Room For You Here and Carrying a Thread.
Home Making ran from February to November 2025, with the exhibition on view from September. Supported by Arts Council England, Sheffield Church Burgesses Trust, JG Graves Charitable Trust, and Sheffield City Council.