“Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember” photography by Melody Golding


Thursday, Oct. 4, 2007
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“Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember” photography by Melody Golding

Melody Golding

This exhibition is about the documentation of life on the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster to have ever been recorded in American history and the experiences and resiliency of the American people to survive and endure after this catastrophic storm.

The purpose of this exhibition is to bring awareness of this disaster and to portray the impact of this storm along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi through the photographs, documentary film, song and stories. It is a one year chronicle from September 2005–August 2006, from state line to state line. All sectors of society are represented in this body of work.

“As a volunteer for the American Red Cross, I traveled to the Coast to try to help shortly after the storm. I put my cameras in the car at the last moment. I wanted to try to let my art make a difference,” Golding said.

The first solo exhibition started at The Walter Anderson Museum of Art, Ocean Springs, from June-August 2006. This was the first exhibition about Hurricane Katrina displayed on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

The solo exhibition was held from March 7-May 29, 2007 at The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. Congressman Bennie Thompson and Senators Lott and Cochran both attended the reception for this exhibition as did State Senator Tommy Miffitt, to name just a few of the esteemed guests.

The National Museum said that this was the most moving exhibition in their 20-year history. It was generously sponsored by Chevron. It was an honor, as a lifelong Mississippi resident and artist, to have had a three-month solo exhibition in a national museum in our nation’s capitol, with the topic being about Mississippi.

This summer the solo exhibition was at the Masur Museum of Art in Monroe, La. and is currently at The Schepis Museum of Art in Columbia, La. (Sept.-Nov. ) and is booked until 2009 at other museums and exhibition sites.

“I am honored to say that this traveling exhibition is currently sponsored in part by The Mississippi Humanities Council. It contains 90 exhibition prints total, my one hour and thirty minute documentary film of the Mississippi Gulf Coastline after Katrina, the “Song for Katrina” (sung by Lucia Lynn, daughter of Mike and Jorja Lynn of Holly Springs) which accompanies the film, and story excerpts, which were all written by women of Mississippi whom survived the storm,” said Golding

This exhibition formed the basis of the book entitled “Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember” published by The University Press of Mississippi, in June 2007. Accompanying the 85 photographs in the book are essays by noted Mississippi authors Ellen Gilchrist and Mary Anderson Pickard as well as stories by Mississippi women.

As a member in The Royal Photographic Society, London, some of my photographs of Katrina in Mississippi were featured in their Awards Journal October 2005, bringing in a European audience early on.

Below is a list of the current and future exhibitions and dates:

The Schepis Museum of Art Columbia, La., Sept. 4 – Nov. 7.
Walter Anderson Museum of Art – Ocean, Springs, Thursday, Sept 20, 2007, through Nov. 4.
The Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation, Vicksburg, November 15 – January 4, 2008.
Fall 2007 - The Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., Homeland Security Committee Hearing Room.
The Tunica Museum, Tunica, January 15 – April 15, 2008.
The Gammil Gallery, The University of Mississippi, Oxford.
The Center for Southern Studies, June 1 – August 31, 2008
The Gore Gallery, Mississippi College, Clinton, Sept. 7 – Nov. 19, 2008.

Melody Golding is an acclaimed photographer of complex architectural wonders and the natural environment. She has photographed on four continents and is collected in national and international museums and by individual collectors. She is affiliated with several leading photographic associations in the United States and Europe.

The Royal Photographic Society, London, of which Melody is a member, published a three page feature of her images of Katrina in the October 2005 Awards Journal which is distributed throughout the world.

Melody, the daughter of Lois Swanee of Holly Springs, is a seventh-generation Mississippian who felt an urgency to support the people of her home state. She has captured thousands of images and video oral histories of this epic disaster. Her photographic skills are particularly well suited to record this event. She recognized the indomitable spirit, strength and courage of the people and wanted to make a difference.

All royalties from the sale of the book will be returned to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to aid in the recovery.

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