STRETCH' is a comprehensive retrospective of work by artist Alexandra Bircken, showing both early and new site-specific pieces. A fundamental parameter of her work is experimentation with materials, with the body as a key point of departure. Her multi-layered, meticulously-constructed sculptures explore skin as covering, as an organ and a cellular structure, but also as a boundary between inside and outside. Materials used in her objects are notable for their strikingly diverse, often contradictory qualities: plaster models, waxes, mannequin fragments and pieces of clothing stand in for body parts; structures packed with wool are used as set pieces and interwoven with one another.00Exhibition: Kunstverein Hannover, Germany (01.10.-27.11.2016) / Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany (26.03.-25.06.2017) / Centre d'art contemporain d'Ivry - Le Crédac, Ivry-sur-Seine, France (08.09.-17.12.2017).