When it opens this week, the new Hotel Zena in Washington, D.C., will make a powerful statement about powerful women. The groundbreaking hotel, part of the Viceroy Hotels & Resorts, has commissioned more than 60 works of art that celebrate female empowerment. Even before they step inside, guests will be greeted by colorful, seven-story-tall murals on the building’s façade, depicting enormous female warriors who keep watch over the hotel and its surrounding Logan Circle neighborhood. (The looming work was created by D.C.-based artist and designer Cita Sadeli, better known as Miss Chelove, who has previously collaborated with everyone from the Smithsonian Institute to Apple.)
In the hotel lobby, a dramatic portrait gallery honors 11 women who’ve led the fight for gender equality, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Rep. Shirley Chisholm—the first Black woman elected to Congress.
Many of the attention-grabbing works also incorporate provocative materials. The larger-than-life homage to Justice Ginsburg has been constructed using 20,000 hand-painted tampons, arranged on a pegboard to create a pointillist portrait (complete with the justice’s signature lace collar and her “Notorious” moniker). A 20-foot-long curving wall in the hotel’s restaurant evokes a glittering gown, adorned with 12,000 protest buttons from decades of feminist marches and events (a nod to the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote in the United States). And a hanging installation of painted folding chairs honours Chisholm’s famous advice: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”
The intention is both to pay tribute to these courageous women and to provoke thoughtful—occasionally uncomfortable—conversations, explains curator Andrea Dawson Sheehan. She spent more than two-and-a-half years conceiving and developing the project as art director of Dawson Design Associates, which also handled the hotel’s interior architecture and design.
“People are really hungry to be treated with content that is challenging, that is authentic, that is memorable,” she says. “[Hotel Zena] is a celebration of women, an appreciation of the struggle that has been enduring forever in our history, from every culture, from every part of the world. We felt we could provide an environment to get people talking.”
The designer and her co-curators tapped more than 50 feminist artists (both women and men) from around the globe to spark that conversation. Their immersive, site-specific pieces encompass a variety of media (textiles, sculpture, photography, origami, drawing, painting, found materials) and a range of moods—from reverent to rebellious, from solemn to humorous.
Sheehan says the idea for the project came to her as the #MeToo movement was grabbing headlines. “A light just went off inside of me,” she recalls. “I think it’s time we do more than just a pretty face of a hotel, and [instead] take a stand in support for gender equality.… Viceroy has been amazing; they jumped right on board and embraced it.
“We’re giving people the opportunity to share in the lives of some amazing women,” she continues. Among the standout installations is a Wall of Honor, featuring 221 sketches of feminist heroes and iconoclasts. Spanning millennia, the honorees include Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut, civil-rights leader and NAACP cofounder Ida B. Wells, scientist Marie Curie, aviator Amelia Earhart, climate activist Greta Thunberg, and media mogul Oprah Winfrey.
Sheehan says the works are designed to explore different points of view and elicit different responses. The materials used in the Ginsburg work, for example, may not be obvious to everyone at first glance. “I would guess that 80% of men will never get it,” she says with a laugh. “But women totally get it. It’s so fun to watch their faces.”
The art also spills into the hotel’s 191 guest rooms, where ethereal paintings of Greek goddesses serve as guardians over visitors. The theme continues inside Figleaf, the hotel’s art-filled restaurant and bar, which will pour cheeky cocktails named after game-changing women.
In the spring, guests and locals alike can wander up to Hedy’s Rooftop lounge, where they’ll find D.C. skyline views, poolside cocktails, and, of course, more art celebrating the accomplishments of women. In the meantime, the hotel—like all Viceroy properties—has implemented a robust anti-COVID program to keep guests safe during the pandemic.
Feature image: Instagram
This originally appeared on Architectural Digest | Author: Carrie Seim
