17 May 2025
The Industry is a major new public artwork for Sheffield by Alex Chinneck.

The sculpture celebrates Sheffield’s historic waterways and industrial heritage. It takes the form of a full-size canal boat, whose body behaves in an extraordinary way, performing a six metre-high, gravity-defying, loop-the-loop.

Fabricated from 9 tonnes of helically-rolled steel and aluminium and painted in traditional canal boat colours, the looping boat bears the name ‘The Industry’, after the first vessel to navigate the Sheffield & Tinsley Canal when it opened in 1819.

The waterway was used to transport sections of the artwork to site, travelling two miles from Rotherham to Tinsley. The loop of the sculpture is the tallest known structure to have been transported along the canal in the last 70 years, leaving only centimetres to spare between the artwork and bridges.

The Industry is permanently located between locks 4 and 5 of the Sheffield & Tinsley Canal.

Music by Cosmo Sheldrake.

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