Gastown Riot - Stan Douglas - A night to remember (or forget)

Earlier this year, just days before Douglas was about to start recreating the scene in the parking lot of the Pacific National Exhibition in east Vancouver, current Vancouver Police Department Chief Jim Chu left a message at his studio asking whether the artist would come in to discuss the project.

Douglas, who declined to meet with Chu, said the chief expressed concern that the artist was bringing up a subject the department had been trying to forget for 30 years.

A spokesman for the department, Tim Fanning, confirmed that Chu had made the call. "He did, and the concern was purely from a public-affairs standpoint," Fanning said. "The VPD has a very positive history with the community it polices and so, something like this, which isn't considered a shiny moment in our history, is obviously not one that we would like to see.

"We're all for art," he added. "And a lot of our members are very artistic themselves and appreciate it, but who wants to have a piece of history that isn't something that they are proud of put up?"

The architect in charge of the Woodward's development, Gregory Henriquez, said he believes the artwork will be a very important part of the building's public space. "Luckily, we don't live in a society where the police chief has any say over public art," he said.

Henriquez praised Woodward's developer, Ian Gillespie, for commissioning such a robust piece. "Most public art sponsored by developers is very soft in the tooth," he noted. "But this site is a controversial one, and kudos to Ian for taking such a big risk on art that reflects its history in a way that is meaningful to the neighbourhood."

Douglas spent a lot of time researching the events of Aug. 7, 1971, collecting not just photographs taken that night, but talking to many people who were there - hippies, bystanders and undercover police officers.

In order to make sure he knew how to effectively photograph people and horses in motion, Douglas, 48, first made three other works that also go on display today in New York. One is an image of a crowd watching a horse race at Hastings Park, but the remaining two capture other significant moments in Vancouver's police history: the 1912 Free Speech Demonstration and the 1935 Battle of Ballantyne Pier. The latter was the culmination of a strike by longshoremen and saw a clash between the union and the Vancouver police and the RCMP. "The RCMP have denied having anything to with it," Douglas says. "But I have a photograph of them on horseback chasing people into Strathcona."

As for Abbott & Cordova, Douglas says he can't predict what the reaction in Vancouver will be. "This is a public work of art and I am not interested in making portraits of great men or great moments in history," he says. "I'm interested in small moments that had the possibility of making change that was not fully realized. This is one of those moments, and I'm hoping it will help people to remember. Because in certain respects, this is a moment that has been forgotten."