Join MMA, the Two Mississippi Museums, and the Walter Anderson Museum of Art for a special panel discussion on the occasion of the 20th anniversary year of Hurricane Katrina. In conjunction with the Two Mississippi Museum’s current exhibition Hurricane Katrina: Mississippi Remembers, Photographs by Melody Golding – sponsored by HORNE – panelists will include artist Elizabeth Robinson, photographer Melody Golding, the director of the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, Mattie Codling, and Michael Morris, director of the Two Mississippi Museums.

Visitors are encouraged to view the LifeShards installation, developed by panelist Elizabeth Robinson, on display in our public corridor. Designed as a creative workshop for families displaced by Hurricane Katrina, LifeShards reflects Robinson’s vision of transforming art into a pathway for healing and community.

Free; registration required.   

About the Panelists

Mattie Codling is the executive director of the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs, MS, where she leads efforts to preserve and share the legacy of Walter Inglis Anderson. With more than fourteen years in the museum field, she previously served as WAMA’s Director of Collections and Exhibitions for nine years and has also worked with the University of Mississippi Museum, Mission San Luis Archaeological Park, and the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum. Codling holds degrees in art history and anthropology from the University of Mississippi and pursued graduate studies in art history and museum studies at Florida State University. Her work centers on connecting communities with art through creativity, education, and environmental literacy, and she has written, spoken, and appeared in the documentary Walter Anderson: The Extraordinary Life and Art of the Islander.

Melody Golding, an author, photographer, and artist from Vicksburg, has created widely recognized documentary projects, including Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember an  Panther Tract: Wild Boar Hunting in the Mississippi Delta, both of which have been acquired by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Her work has been exhibited at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., and is featured in the Department of Homeland Security’s Congressional Hearing Room. Golding has published four books with the University Press of Mississippi, including Life Between the Levees: America’s Riverboat Pilots, which earned the Herman T. Pott Award. Honored with the Mississippi Humanities Council Chair’s Award for her body of work on Hurricane Katrina, she has also received national recognition, including a presidential commendation from George W. Bush.

Michael Morris is the director of the Two Mississippi Museums, the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. A Jackson native and graduate of Jackson State University, he began his career at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in 2016 and has since guided strategic planning, community meetings, research projects, and major events while supporting department leadership. Active in the community, he played a key role in Jackson’s bicentennial commemoration, authored markers for the Mississippi Freedom Trail, moderated panels for the Mississippi Book Festival, and served as Mississippi archivist for the Our Story, Our Terms civil rights project at Duke University.

Elizabeth Robinson, a glass artist with over 40 years of experience, has crafted stories in kiln-formed and sculpted glass that capture the rhythms, memories, and soul of Mississippi. Her work, collected nationally and internationally, often takes flight in the form of her signature glass birds, symbols of resilience and joy. Among her most meaningful contributions is LifeShards, a program she created at the Mississippi Museum of Art in partnership with Susan Womack, Carolyn Jolivette, and Parents for Public Schools of Jackson. Led by artists Kira Cummings, Jerry Hymel, and Ginger Cook Williams, LifeShards offered creative workshops for families displaced by Hurricane Katrina, transforming art into a pathway for healing and community.