Photographs By Melody Golding National Museum Of Women In The Arts

Through a rich collage of images and stories by Mississippi women, the exhibition documents the tempest's initial overwhelming devastation, followed by the determination of Mississippi's inhabitants to endure and prevail.

Noted photographer Melody Golding came to the Gulf Coast as a volunteer for the American Red Cross, bringing supplies and a desire to help. Her unique sepia-toned photographs, as well as a video diary of her year-long sojourn along the coast are stunning and powerful in their simplicity.

Her eyewitness account of Katrina's wake, and its impact upon coastal residents from Pearlington to Pascagoula, is accompanied by stories written by survivors of the storm. The participants in the photographs and stories are women from Mississippi, many of whom are artists themselves.

In the early days of the catastrophe, despite desperate circumstances and with great generosity of spirit, these women recorded their experiences with a broad diversity of voices. In addition, operatic soprano Lucia Lynn, a native of Mississippi, currently residing in Los Angeles, composed and performed Song of Katrina for the video chronicle.

This exhibition, which documents the artist's photographic journey, accurately reflects the book Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember, which will be released by The University Press of Mississippi in May 2007. Included are essays by Mississippi authors Ellen Gilchrist and Mary Anderson Pickard.

Although the physical and psychological ordeal of Katrina has not yet ended, this exhibition presents a new chapter in the history of Mississippi women, a unique account of reclamation, resolution, and recovery. -- www.nmwa.org