After Khalid Salimi became Deputy Chairman of The Norwegian National Arts Council in 1996, these ideas were presented to him, and during conversations they were discussed further with Bull. Salimi suggested an expansion of the idea by focusing on Pakistani art and culture in general. Ashley Shiri, editor of Tellus Radio, the former Radio Immigranten of The Anti-Racist Centre, knew about a Mela-arrangement in England, and he made Salimi aware of an invitation from Birmingham, where a Mela was going to be launched in 1998. Shiri and Salimi continued discussing the theme, and Shiri procured material about more Melas in England. At the same time they had contact with The Arts Council of Great Britain which helped them with additional information. The Council supports a number of Melas in The British Isles. In autumn of the same year Khalid Salimi, Halvor Voldstad and Ole Jacob Bull from The Norwegian National Arts Council travelled to Birmingham together with Annichen Hauan from Norsk Form in order to attend a Mela there. This proved a strong inspiration and gave all of them new ideas. At the same time, however, there were certain features that they did not want to copy. The Mela in Birmingham was badly advertised and marketed outside the local Pakistani and Indian communities. A huge crowd showed up, but upon being asked, none of the non-Asian persons had known beforehand that a festival of this kind was going to be launched in the area. In other words, information outside the ethnic millieus had been lacking, and the event by and large became an internal Asian cultural show. In Norway there was a wish to profile the festival more as a meeting place.

Furthermore it was felt that the arrangement visited had too much of the character of a fair-ground with food-stalls and fashion shows with minor artistic features. Hence at this early stage, already, it was decided that if a similar project were going to be launched in Norway, it would have to have as its main purpose the promotion of art and culture.

Finally, the Birmingham arena was located in a remote fair-ground. In contrast the Norwegian delegation realized the necessity to locate a similar event in Norway to a central arena in order to attract attention and create an impact on the integration debate.

Instead of just having an exhibition, thus risking passivating the audience, there was a wish for activating the Pakistani immigrant communities. Khalid Salimi expressed that they did not wish to act as ‘watchman’, but on the contrary desired to create identity and enthusiasm for the Mela-idea through involvement. Among other things, when a secretariat was to be established, this view led to a man with Pakistani background, Naweed Amjad, being the first appointed full-time as project-coordinator in August 2000. At this point it was an explicit goal that Mela was going to be used for building up competence for work with art and culture within the Pakistani community.

The excursion to Birmingham started a discussion which in due course also got NORAD and Norway 2000 involved. The idea about a Norwegian festival began seriously to take shape. A thorough groundwork was encouraged in order to find out a proper framework and relevant contents for a Norwegian Mela. It was strongly emphasized that it would have to appear ‘Norwegian’ and not Pakistani or English. The content and form would have to be recognizable within the specifically Norwegian situation.
During a private trip to Pakistan Salimi started the work of building up a network and surveying possibilities for the engagement of Pakistani partners. Then, in March 2000, Salimi and Voldstad went on another trip to Pakistan in order to prepare and put at the ready a program for an official delegation journey. This journey took place in the months of March and April 2000 under the leadership of Jon Bing, the then Chairman of The Norwegian National Arts Council, together with representatives from Norsk Form, Norway 2000 and Norad.

Mini-Mela/Connections

In September 2001 a socalled Mini-Mela meant as a pilot-project, but also as a way to create attention to and debate about a Mela in Oslo, was arranged. An audience about 4000 strong attended the arrangement in Vaterland Park.The program was of a completely different character from the one launched a year later during Mela 2002. During Mini-Mela the features were mainly of a popular cultural kind with Bollywood artists and stand-up comedians of both Norwegian and Pakistani background. The large majority of the audience was of Pakistani origin. However, the entire event was closed with a “multicultural evening” in The Oslo Concert House. Here the program consisted of story and fairy-tale telling, classical Indian dance, theatrical performances, poetry reading and classical music. Thus the ‘fine’ and the ‘popular’ arts were kept separate in two different arenas, and this gave the arrangement a totally different character in comparison to Mela 2002.

At the same time a round-table conference with the tell-tale title Connections was arranged. It was also referred to as “an encounter of dialogue between cultural workers and institutions”.

The third element of Mini-Mela was a cultural conference which had as its purpose to enhance Norwegian cultural workers’ knowledge about Pakistani art and culture. Especially the aim was to impart knowledge about the working conditions of Pakistani artists under a regime where public support is virtually absent and combined with strict control. Among others, Professor Annemarie Schimmel from Germany participated here delivering a lecture on the role of Sufism in Pakistani culture. Also the Principal of the national College of Arts in Lahore, Sajida Vandal, contributed with a lecture about educational institutions and infrastructure in relation to artistic life in Pakistan. Usmaan Peerzada from the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop lectured on the conditions of the artist in today’s Pakistan.Other contributers included Jalees Hazar, Ajey Chabra and Simi Gupta.

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