citizenM

RYAN! Feddersen, Harold Hollingsworth, Mary Iverson, Natalie Krick, Anthony White, Jennifer Zwick

citizenM Pioneer Square

Hotel artworks reflect the history and identity of Seattle’s Pioneer Square.

RYAN! Feddersen’s Schema covers a large façade of the citizenM hotel in Seattle’s Pioneer Square. The graphic mural’s mosaic of symbols and visual metaphors recalls the history and idiosyncrasies of the neighborhood and emphasizes the future impact of today’s choices.

Made of porcelain enamel tile, the mural features an abstract map of the neighborhood’s distinctive grid along with a series of ladders—which were necessary to access to cafes, bars, and shops after a 1890s regrade pushed storefronts underground. Taking its aesthetic structure and vibrant color palette from turn-of-the-century Native American beadwork, the work suggests the lasting effects of colonization, industry, politics, city planning, and nature on present-day Pioneer Square.

“Schema very much represents a mode for how I like to work,” Feddersen says. “Time to dive into research and think in a site-specific way about histories and narratives, then the freedom to combine that content with aesthetic, ideological, and strategic ways of working.” Based in Tacoma, Feddersen creates interactive murals, site-specific installations, and immersive public artworks that invite audience engagement and interrogate official histories. An enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, she applies traditional Plateau storytelling to her work.

citizenM consulted with 4Culture to curate and commission Schema as well as a series of pieces in the hotel’s interior spaces—all of which were made by Seattle artists. The interior artworks include original wallpaper by Harold Hollingsworth, a painting by Anthony White, and in-room works by Hollingsworth, painter Mary Iverson, and photographers Natalie Krick and Jennifer Zwick.