The Southampton Mela Festival returns to Hoglands Park this July
After two challenging years for the local community, live events and local businesses alike, Art Asia is delighted to announce Southampton’s favourite summer highlight is back.
The Southampton Mela Festival returns to Hoglands Park on Saturday 16 July, featuring world-class music and dance artists, delicious food from local businesses across the southern region, as well as family fun activities, creative workshops and a huge range of stalls to peruse throughout the day.
Visitors can expect some exciting surprise additions to the programme this year too.
Art Asia has reached a monumental milestone in the past year; 40 years of celebrating South Asian culture, encouraging greater involvement within the community through creative activities and providing numerous opportunities for increased understanding and enjoyment of South Asian arts in the city of Southampton.
The Southampton Mela Festival is the celebration showcase of this year-round activity through Art Asia.
Dahlia Jamil, Chief Executive at Art Asia says, “We are delighted to make a return to Hoglands Park this summer with a packed programme of phenomenal live performance, workshops for all ages, a huge array of delicious cuisine from all over the world, and many new additions and surprises to the programme throughout the day. The Mela truly is a celebration of togetherness, and after the pandemic we are certain this year's festival will be bigger and better than ever.”
The Southampton Mela Festival is a long-standing summer highlight in Southampton’s events calendar celebrating Modern and Traditional Asian Culture. Over the last two decades, the Southampton Mela festival attracts thousands of people per year from along the South coast, and this year's return to the live event setup is expected to be the same, if not more.
This year, festival goers will see a packed programme of music and dance across three stages featuring renowned performers including Navin Kundra, Pandit Sanju Sahai, The Hussain Brothers, Vidya Thirunarayan, Pooja Angra and Karan Rana plus many more.
Audiences can also expect exciting and interactive fringe acts such as juggling, story telling, craft activities for children, and even a flash mob performance from long standing associate of Art Asia, MAST Mayflower Studios. Furthermore, one of the most popular elements of the Southampton Mela is the cuisine; festival goers can once again sample a delicious range of food delights from all over the world.
Art Asia is delighted to have the continued support from their key funders Arts Council England and Southampton City Council. The Southampton Mela Festival sponsors this year are Solent University Southampton and Arts University Bournemouth, who both support emerging talent and build connections across the region.
Professor Karen Stanton, Vice-Chancellor, Solent University said: “Solent University is delighted to be supporting the Southampton Mela Festival. This annual celebration, that brings together the region’s diverse communities, helps build a culturally enriched and cohesive city – one of Solent’s Civic Charter priorities”.
Commenting on Solent’s support, DahliaJamil, Chief Executive at Art Asia and the Southampton Mela Festival said: ”It is fantastic to once again be working with Solent University as one of our supporters of the Mela Festival. Without the support of local organisations like Solent, and its staff and students this event wouldn’t be possible”.
This year, to celebrate the return to a live Mela setting, Art Asia has collaborated with the BA (Hons) Textiles department and the BA (Hons) Events Management department at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) by inviting first year textile students an opportunity to design flags that would be displayed at the festival.
The BA (Hons) Textiles students who are in their first year at AUB, were given a brief to design in May this year. They were encouraged to do their research on South Asian design motifs to understand the client and the context of where their work will be displayed. Out of 12 entries 4 final designs were chosen; the winners are Anita Scudamore, Abbie Bradley, Mae Thompson and Hannah Elliott. You can view the 4 winning designs in front of the Main Stage at Mela on Saturday 16 July 2022.
Kevin Chambers, Course Leader, BA (Hons) Events Management, Arts University Bournemouth, said: “We are tremendously excited to be working with Art Asia on Southampton Mela. Not only does this present opportunities for artists and producers to work on a project of a significant scale very early in their careers but provides Arts University Bournemouth with an opportunity to support Mela which has tremendous cultural significance not only in Southampton but across the region. We already have plans to develop our partnership with Art Asia further and to investigate new opportunities for collaboration in the future."
Join the Southampton Mela Festival 2022 on Saturday 16 July - Hoglands Park, Southampton, 12 Noon - 9pm. Free entry.
