Stretcher was a collaborative online publication project that was actively managed from 2000-2010. Thanks to the Internet Archive, much of the project still exists as an archive and can be visited HERE .

Mission:
Stretcher’s mission is to encourage dialog about contemporary art and visual culture in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. One of the first online publications in the area, Stretcher.org covers visual arts and culture in the international art community from a Bay Area perspective. With the online site, live public events, and related media projects, Stretcher increases the reach and visibility of Bay Area conversations and criticism. In this way, Stretcher stimulates creative development in our community, enhancing the intensity, focus, and relevance of art to the issues we face.

Green Room Now

Green Room Now was one of many iterations that took Stretcher out of the digital space and bridged it with physical spac as part of Bay Area Now 4 presnted at YErba Buena Center for The Arts. The statement for the piece is below along with a selection of images from the installation in the museum space.

Green Room Now is the second in a series of interlocking virtual/social/physical spaces created by Stretcher to intensify dialogue about art in the Bay Area. For Bay Area Now 4, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ triennial of Bay Area artistic activity, Stretcher orchestrates significant conversations using a variety of social structures such as interviews, talk shows, and dinner parties to enhance connectivity within the Bay Area and beyond. Video highlights of each event are archived here and will be available in the future on DVD. Viewers are invited to join the conversation by attending upcoming events or participating in virtual space by using the “comment” buttons at the close of each piece published at www.stretcher.org . —Amy Berk, David Lawrence, Cheryl Meeker, Ed Osborn, Meredith Tromble