It’s Like This

Chakaia Booker

2001

Chakaia Booker, who lives and works in New York, combines her concerns about the environment and the struggles of women into one philosophy that has come to be called “eco-feminism.” For several years, she has produced sculpture from discarded recycled tires. The blackness of the tires and their geometric tread patterns are references to black skin, the African practice of scarification, African fabric patterns, and black hair. To Booker, the tire contains many metaphors about black life, including the long, slow, smoldering burn of a tire that has caught fire.