Stretch is a stand-alone interactive installation, a performance event and a workshop experience. A screen made of nearly two thousand strands of fine shirring elastic under tension, stretching across a space, Stretch is a sound sculpture, an electro acoustic harp, a blank canvas, minimalist and symbolic in appearance. Its many miles of elastic create a permeable threshold or boundary, embracing the architecture of the space it occupies. The sculpture invites interaction, quietly provoking the viewer into physical engagement, to manipulate it, and to discover its potential to transform and be transformed.

Stretch can include performance in the form of structured improvisations for solo and duet combinations. These can also extend to invite and involve members of the audience.

The audience can engage with the sculpture informally, discovering its sound making potential for themselves. The sculpture’s capacity to make sound is harnessed by connecting the strands of elastic to sound boxes to which a number of pick-up microphones and pressure sensors are attached. Raw and recorded sounds, created and activated as a result of a visitor/performer touching the sculpture, are captured, processed and amplified.

Stretch’s potential audience is limitless. It is an inclusive work, accessible to all ages, abilities and needs, as intriguing and enthralling to a child as to an elderly person or a wheelchair user. All can get close up into the elastic to have a rich sensory experience. There is room for a variety of interactions from the large to the small, the physical to the contemplative. And for those who prefer to remain on the outside, to observe artists, family, friends or strangers explore and engage, is a fascinating experience. Stretch invites contemplation from within and without.

Crying Out Loud and Stretch

We began to work with Sophia Clist in 2002, interested in her practice because she was creating new and different participatory and immersive work at a time when there was very little extraordinary work for children and adults to participate in together. This was quickly followed by the commissioning of Stretch, which we produced and co-presented over many years.

Stretch has shown nationally and internationally at festivals, theatres and in public spaces, from West Bromwich Town Hall to Sadler’s Wells, London, from Toronto, Canada to Perth, Australia. Most recently, Stretch was installed across the 9.5 metre nave of Exeter Cathedral, a venue unlike any other it has visited. The nature of a cathedral as a place of contemplation was of great interest to the artists and influenced the way in which the public engaged with the sculpture.