This summer’s Mela in Southampton was so comprehensively illustrated by our on site social media whizz, Raina. She flitted and flew from stage, to marquee, to workshop, to street performance, to food stalls and fairground. Her narrative on being involved is beautifully captured below. Read on to relive the vibrancy of our Mela 2026…
My camera storage was completely full, my power bank was completely drained, my feet were throbbing, and I am pretty sure those were the two best days of my life!
If you noticed a girl sprinting across Hoglands Park during the mela, clutching a phone and camera, capturing beautiful people and things, and frantically trying to upload Reels before losing signal – hi, that was me! I had the absolute privilege of covering social media for the Southampton Mela Festival 2026 across both days.
When you cover an event like this from behind a screen, you spend hours looking through a viewfinder. But the weird, beautiful thing about watching a festival through a lens is that you start noticing the micro-moments that most people walk right past. Beyond the stage lighting, the schedules, and the sheer logistics, what I witnessed on the ground went so much deeper than just a lineup of acts.
It taught me so much about happiness, joy human connection, and unity anchored by three giant pillars: Culture, Art, and Food.
Pillar 1: Culture
Where languages became ONE
On paper, my job was to capture the cultural performances and other things going on: I did capture a fantastic range of talent from South Indian Tamil drumming, the West African migratory story of the Nightjar Collective, to clips of the Khan Brothers’ soulful Qawwali.
But while my camera was pointed at the stage, my eyes kept drifting to the crowd.
From the moment the gates opened, the cultural energy in the park was completely electric and welcoming. Art Asia Chief Executive, Dahlia Jamil, described the festival beautifully as “a tapestry where South Asian heritage meets our city’s vibrant diversity, a place where rhythms from Asia, Africa, Europe, and America become one”. Everyone in Southampton was invited to celebrate, learn, and belong, and you could truly feel that inclusive, happy spirit in the crowd.
I also loved exploring the historical side of our culture at the New Forest Heritage Centre exhibition. Learning about the fascinating history of the Indian army hospitals and convalescent depots right here in the New Forest during WWI (from November 1914 to March 1916) filled me with so much pride. It reminded me that our city’s beautiful, multicultural bond is deep, historic, and something to be celebrated every single day.
Pillar 2: Art
The smiles so beautiful that I can’t describe
In the Visual Arts tent, art wasn’t about perfection; it was about shared creation.
Over on the Mela Stage, where local youth groups performed, I caught a moment backstage right before a group of young dancers went on. You could see the nervous tension in their shoulders – fidgeting with their costumes and double-checking their steps. But the second they stepped out under the lights and heard the cheer from their families, friends, and complete strangers in the park, their faces lit up with pure pride.
And on Sunday evening, when Padma Shri Velu Aasan and Prathap Ramachandra took to the Main Stage for the drumming finale, I put my phone down for just ten seconds. The raw, reverberating thunder of the Parai and Mridangam drums vibrated right through the soles of my shoes. I looked out over a sea of people from different ethnicities, different generations, different walks of life – all standing shoulder-to-shoulder, completely spellbound by the same artistic crescendo. The collective cheer at the end gave me actual goosebumps.
Pillar 3: Food
Food is the common thread that connects us all!
You cannot talk about Mela without talking about the food stalls, but what struck me most wasn’t just the incredible smells of roasting spices and sweet delicacies, it was how food brought people together on a human level.
Even the eco-friendly side of the festival created these sweet, quiet interactions. Because single-use plastics were banned, the central water refill station became a natural meeting point. Standing in line to fill up my water bottle between shoots, I overheard strangers striking up conversations about which act they were running to see next, sharing sunscreen, or helping each other find the recycling bins.
What 48 Hours Behind the Lens Taught Me
When I finally pressed “Stop Recording” on Sunday night as the sun began to set over Hoglands Park, I was completely exhausted, but I also felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude.
In a world where we spend so much time online, isolated in our own little bubbles, events like the Southampton Mela Festival are a vital reminder of what actually matters. It’s easy to hear things about division, but when you stand in the middle of Hoglands Park, you realise that people want to connect. They want to dance together, taste each other’s food, learn each other’s stories, and smile at one another.
Art Asia, with the support of partners like Arts Council England, the Southampton City Council, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary, Visit Southampton and GO! Southampton gave our city a massive, free gift that weekend.
It was pure magic! The magic was in every performance, every shared laugh, every hold of a hand, every child sitting on a parent’s shoulders, and every person who walked into the park as a stranger and left feeling like part of a family.
To everyone who let me point a camera in your face, who gave me a wave, who danced for my camera, or who shared a smile with a stranger in the mela,
THANK YOU. You made my job an absolute dream.
See you all on the grass for Mela 2027!
Raina.
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