Stan Douglas

This volume is the third annual publication celebrating the winner of the Scotiabank Photography Award, Canada's largest contemporary photography award for an established Canadian artist. Photography has played a vital role in Stan Douglas' artistic development. This publication highlights the significance of the photographic image in the critical and historical reception of Douglas' approach to art and media. The stories, sites and events that Douglas explores are populist, literate and timely. His photographs frequently describe the overlooked histories of cultural identity, displacement and injustice that reveal an uncanny resemblance to present-day events. This is achieved through an insightful attention to photography as both medium and subject. Folding the spectator into the visual culture of memory and oblivion that photographs evoke initiates profound observations about the ubiquity of photography in contemporary culture. The photographs of Stan Douglas affirm the validity and volatility of the photographic medium at this decisive moment in the history of art and photography.
A book on world-renowned artist Stan Douglas' monumental photo installation about the 1971 Gastown Riot in Vancouver.
"This richly illustrated volume focuses on events of 1971's Gastown Riot ... Simmering narratives of protest and inequality run alongside a study of the mechanics and meaning of representation." --"Canadian Art"

"Arsenal Pulp Press has published a beautiful and informative book about one of Vancouver's most stunning and original works of public art." --"Vancouver Sun"

"This collection of essays pries open the iconic 30x50-foot translucent photo mural, depicting a decades-ago clash between police and protestors that defined Vancouver's Gastown neighbourhood, and which now hangs in the atrium of the city's Woodward's complex. From Nora M. Alter's analysis of the image as a 'moving still' to Jesse Proudfoot's history of the politics of representation in the Downtown Eastside, these essays help fulfil Douglas's intent to keep conversation about the riot -- and the photograph that 'condenses' it -- evolving." --"The Tyee"

"Cinematic in its scale and production, the photomural depicts riot police, mounted police, and undercover cops clashing with hippies, while area residents and visitors look on. Douglas frequently uses his art to reimagine pivotal but often misread or obscured moments in history ... This book addresses not only the elaborate creation and multiple meanings of the mural but also what the publisher calls 'the politics of urban conflict' embedded within it." --"Georgia Straight"

"Arsenal Pulp Press has published a beautiful and informative book about one of Vancouver's most stunning and original works of public art." --"Vancouver Sun"

"This collection of essays pries open the iconic 30x50-foot translucent photo mural, depicting a decades-ago clash between police and protestors that defined Vancouver's Gastown neighbourhood, and which now hangs in the atrium of the city's Woodward's complex. From Nora M. Alter's analysis of the image as a 'moving still' to Jesse Proudfoot's history of the politics of representation in the Downtown Eastside, these essays help fulfil Douglas's intent to keep conversation about the riot -- and the photograph that 'condenses' it -- evolving." --"The Tyee"

"Cinematic in its scale and production, the photomural depicts riot police, mounted police, and undercover cops clashing with hippies, while area residents and visitors look on. Douglas frequently uses his art to reimagine pivotal but often misread or obscured moments in history ... This book addresses not only the elaborate creation and multiple meanings of the mural but also what the publisher calls 'the politics of urban conflict' embedded within it." --"Georgia Straight"