Are you a business owner who is looking for new ways to engage and connect with local Newport customers on a year-round basis? We have the perfect opportunity. Sponsor a Newport tradition – The Newport Art Museum – Make NAM part of your marketing plan in 2025.

We have an array of events and exhibits to offer you. Our first exciting event is the 2025 Winter Speaker Series in its 97th Year. WSS25 will feature top-tier speakers from prestigious institutions such as the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Boston Children’s Hospital, Brown University, RISD, the historic Mount Auburn Cemetery, and many more!

Winter Speaker Series kicks off on January 11 with Darrell West, a senior fellow in the governance studies program at the Brookings Institution whose lead-off session will explore the political outlook for 2025, including emerging trends, the latest polls, and framing the incoming administration in historic context.

The Complete 2025 Winter Speaker Series Slate:

January 11: Darrell West is a Senior Fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of a number of books on American politics and public policy. His most recent book is Power Politics:  Trump and the Assault on American Democracy. Previously, he was a professor at Brown University. West will examine the political outlook for the coming year. What are the priorities of the new president and what issues is he or she likely to address? What will the new Congress look like and how will that help or hinder progress towards resolving the country’s most pressing problems. Using an analysis of the latest polls and emerging trends, West will put the new administration in historic context and discuss what people should pay attention to.

 

January 18: Hidde Ploegh is an immunologist at Boston Children’s Hospital. He is well-known for his contributions in understanding antigen processing and the evasion of the immune system by viruses. Ploegh received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1975, and a Master of Science degree in biology and chemistry in 1977, from the University of Groningen. Antibodies found in the blood of Alpacas are similar to those found in humans. Dr. Hidde Ploegh and his team have been researching ways to utilize this similarity in blood antibodies to develop new therapies to attack cancer cells. Thus far, the results are encouraging and provide new ways to fight cancer as well as some autoimmune disorders.

 

January 25: Dr.Gregory Skomal is a shark biologist who quite unexpectedly found himself in the middle of the newest white shark hot spot tells his story and the story of these magnificent creatures. Based on his book Chasing Shadows, written with Ret Talbot, this presentation highlights this remarkable conservation success story, which is loaded with cutting-edge science, drama, and controversy. From the fascinating early days of shark research on the East Coast to the consequences of the so-called Jaws effect and the heart-stopping moment when he found himself beneath a 17-foot white shark off Cape Cod, Skomal sets the record straight about this iconic species.

 

February 1: Meg Winslow, is the Curator of Historical Collections & Archives at Mount Auburn Cemetery. She is responsible for developing and overseeing the Cemetery’s permanent collections. These include the institutional archives, the special collections of fine and decorative art, and the collection of artistic monuments in the landscape. Mount Auburn is the first American cemetery that purposely combined elements of experimental gardening, magnificent architecture, picturesque landscape design, and access to nature, starting a trend across the nation in the mid-19th century that led to the creation of the first public parks in this country. Ms. Winslow will discuss Mount Auburn’s creation, history, and original features, as well as its current multifaceted role as a cemetery, arboretum, outdoor museum, and wildlife habitat.

 

February 8: Liz Collins is an artist based in New York City known for pushing the boundaries of art and design in innovative and experimental work in fabric, yarn, and other materials and techniques associated with textile media. In July 2025, Liz Collins’ mid-career retrospective will open at the RISD Museum. In this lecture at Newport Art Museum, the artist will talk about the process of planning this exhibition and preview some of the works that will be featured. Through the presentation of select works, Collins will elucidate the different facets of her making methods and contexts that engage and inspire her.

 

Sydney Skybetter is a choreographer. Hailed by the Financial Times as “One of the world’s foremost thinkers on the intersection of dance and emerging technologies,” Sydney’s choreography has been performed at such venues as The Kennedy Center and Jacob’s Pillow. He has lectured at SXSW, Yale, Mozilla and the Boston Dynamics AI Institute. He consulted for The National Ballet of Canada, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Hasbro, and The University of Southern California, among others. In Clock, Fall, Skybetter dives into the origin of choreorobotics, recent advancements in the field, and how emerging technologies can be informed or disrupted by collective action and coalition building, drawing from his work as the founder of the Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces and podcast, “Dances with Robots.” In this presentation, Skybetter will cover topics ranging from Boston Dynamics robots, Tesla’s “Party Mode” and Optimus robots, parasitic aesthetic theory, the movie M3GAN, Artificial Intelligence, and a little bit of Beyoncé.

Contact:

For more information, contact, Susan Hanley; Senior Advisor, Sponsor &Donor Engagement, 631-599-1950 (shanley@newportartmuseum.org)