Installation begins Monday on a monumental new sculpture at Lock 3 in downtown Akron, as crews spend Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 26 and 27, setting Chakaia Booker’s twin-petal work near the Main Street entrance of the park at 200 South Main Street.
Rising 17 feet, the sculpture is crafted from stainless steel and recycled Goodyear Racing Eagle tires donated by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, and it will frame the pathway through the Cynthia and Landon Knight Hemlock Walk overlooking the Ohio and Erie Canal. The commission marks Akron’s first major contemporary outdoor sculpture by a woman artist.
The City of Akron, Curated Storefront and the Ohio and Erie Canalway Coalition announced the commission in August. Booker was selected by the Lock 3 Art Task Force, her concept was approved by the Akron Public Art Commission, and the project — estimated at 550,000 dollars — drew support from Curated Storefront donors, VIA Art Fund, the Women Moving Millions Art Catalyst Fund, the city and the Canalway Coalition.
“Booker’s striking installation transforms one of Akron’s signature materials into a symbol of the city’s industrial and creative evolution,” said Heather Meeker, executive director of Curated Storefront. “The commission celebrates an artist whose work deeply connects with Akron’s identity.”
The public gets two chances to celebrate the arrival this week, both free. Booker gives an artist talk Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 6 p.m. at the Akron Art Museum, 1 South High Street, and the naming and dedication ceremony follows Thursday, Oct. 29, at 1 p.m. at Lock 3.
Booker, a Guggenheim Fellow, has spent more than four decades transforming discarded tires into sculptural forms, and her work is held in more than 40 major collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She has a 25-year connection to Northeast Ohio, with exhibitions at the Akron Art Museum in 2000, the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2015 and the FRONT International triennial in 2022.
City and Canalway leaders say the work is meant to draw new audiences to a park that has welcomed visitors from across the region since reopening in November 2024. “This investment reinforces downtown Akron as a destination for culture and creativity,” Mayor Shammas Malik said, while Canalway Coalition president Catherine Timko said Booker’s presence “will bring new visitors to the park” along the Towpath Trail.