A Guide To DC — My (Nearly) Exhaustive Guide to Art, Events, & Newsletters for the Greater DC Area

Nicole
4 min readOct 23, 2019

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Dupont Underground: The abandoned subterranean streetcar station turned artspace

Sometimes I’m asked how I find the art exhibits that I go to, the lectures that I attend, and the news that I chat about , especially as a young person who made their way into both professional & “adult” DC without a degree — so I’ve put together a list of some of the lesser known resources of DC, in addition to a few other pieces of my media diet, that I use frequently!

(The majority of these are free because I rarely believe in paying for events.)

ART:

  • Dupont Underground: Abandoned subterranean streetcar station that hosts concerts, art exhibits, conference receptions, and more.
  • Von Ammon Co.: Brand new art space tucked away in Georgetown, with exhibits unlike anything else you can find in DC.
  • Dumbarton Oaks Museum: Historic estate with collections of Byzantine and Pre-Columbian art, as well as European artworks and furnishings.
  • The Kreeger Museum: The museums hosts modern and contemporary art, and is worth visiting for its architecture alone.
  • Rhizome: Artspace that “promotes creativity in all forms”- which includes concerts, workshops, performances, talks, exhibitions, and demonstration projects in areas such as art, music, technology, theater, local food, poetry, and more.
  • Glenstone: A stretch in terms of the “greater DC area” and reservations must be made far in advance, but described as “ a holistic experience of art, architecture and landscape.”
Glenstone Museum

EVENTS:

Science Lectures

The Cosmos Club, where the Philosophical Society of Washington lectures are held.

Humanities Lectures

General Lectures

  • NYU DC: All types of lectures (& workshops!)
  • Sixth&I: Historic synagogue that hosts events for arts, entertainment, and ideas
  • The Atlantic Live: Short events sponsored by the Atlantic on all topics
  • Axios: Excellent short live interviews on all sorts of topics, but keeps them fairly small, you can RSVP by joining their newsletters, which will get you on the event emailing lists!
  • Politico Live: wide-ranging conferences and shorter events

General

Meetups

  • DC Tech Meetup: Stay up to date on the innovation ecosystem and see demos & product launches. Meet technologists, entrepreneurs, and investors.
  • Code for DC: meet programmers and data scientists across the city.

Policy/ Think Tanks

**Also — get on embassy event mailing lists! They host concerts, classes, tastings, screenings (the Russian embassy has a separate theatre just for screening events), and more. It’s easier to register for some than others, but my general advice is RSVP to any public event they have, and wait for invites more up your alley to roll in.

NEWSLETTERS:

DC Specific:

Other:

Let me know if you find this list helpful & please send me your own resources that I’ve missed!

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Nicole

Design + Machine Learning + Philosophy + ☧. Investor @ Compound. linktr.ee/nwilliams030