2025 Annual Report Update: Partnering to Honor the Promise of Spring

In spring 2025, the Simmons Center, together with the Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center and Mystic Seaport Museum, presented “Seeqan Sessions: Light, Growth and Preservation,” a three-day convening centering conversations around conservation: waterways, culture, and resilience. Conservation involves the necessary pursuit of protection, preserving what we value for the next generations. It also can be a practice of exclusion, extraction, and division, reinforcing colonial constructs and systems of exploitative power. Together, we explored the conservation of land and water, of history and art, of community and youth, and more, through decolonizing methodologies.

Group of people smiling in front of a house. — Presenters from the first evening (L to R: Rashad Young, traditional flute and drum performance; Michael Thomas, Member of Board of Directors, Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center; and keynote speakers Lorén Spears, Executive Director, Tomaquag Museum; and Dr. Akeia de Barros Gomes, Director, Edward W. Kane and Martha J. Wallace Center for Black History at the Newport Historical Society). Photo by Kiku Langford McDonald/Simmons Center.

Seeqan Sessions was revitalizing — a chance to reflect deeply on the histories, ancestors, traditions and communities that have always shaped Mystic and its waterways, and an opportunity to strengthen and expand our relationships with the partner organizations, speakers and attendees.

Bridget Hall ’23 A.M. in Public Humanities Associate Curator of Maritime Social History, Mystic Seaport Museum, 2023–2025

Man playing a wooden instrument. — Rashad Young kicked off the first evening with songs on his flute and drum. Photo by Kiku Langford McDonald/Simmons Center.

We sought to honor the promise of spring by bringing together knowledge-bearers, scholars, advocates, artists, teachers, and youth from across the Dawnlands, with interested members of the public, for conversation, connection, and community. This gathering included traditional flute, drum, and singing performances, panel presentations, artist reflections, discussions, an Artist Fair, and shared meals. The first day was hosted by the Mystic Seaport Museum and days two and three were hosted by the Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center.

The original people of the northeast have kept alive the sacredness of our land and waters hidden within stories. Seeqan is the season of rebirth and renewal. Across Pequot homelands and ancestral waters, it is the season when the herring return home, new life blooms, and light burns away the darkness. During Seeqan, we come together to share stories, celebrate possibility, and rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of a better future.

Joshua Carter Executive Director, Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center

Man demonstrating a wooden instrument, — David Firearrow, Traditional Artist and member of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, shows attendees the traditional tools he creates and uses in his wampumpeag practice. Photo by Kiku Langford McDonald/Simmons Center.

Highlights included access to the special exhibition at the Mystic Seaport Museum, “Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty, and the Sea,” and a reception with food by Chef Sherry Pocknett of Sly Fox Den. We were honored to welcome St Clair "Brinky" Tucker and his son, Stephen Tucker, St. David's Islanders and Native Community members, who spoke about how their community includes descendents of enslaved people from New England who were transported to Bermuda, and their ongoing efforts to reconnect with their ancestral traditions and relatives. Panelists represented a wide range of experience, from youth who are honing their crafts and working to preserve our world for their and future generations, to elders whose years of activism and hard work left a deep impression on the audience, urging us to take up their torches to continue to protect our waterways, traditions and communities.

Group of four people standing arm in arm for a picture. — The “Conserving Waterways: Ocean Resiliency” panelists (L to R: Rahiem Eleazer, Environmental Liaison, Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation; Bettina Washington, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe of Gay Head; moderator Michael Johnson, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation; and David Weeden, Deputy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe). Photo by Kiku Langford McDonald/Simmons Center.

Kiku Langford McDonald

Communications Manager