On view at The Polygon, North Vancouver – Stan Douglas: 2011 ≠ 1848

The exhibition (9 September–6 November 2022) presents a series of works which premiered at the 2022 Venice Biennale, inspired by historical events of social and political turbulence. Douglas connects points of social rupture, rendering in minute detail and with technical ingenuity historic moments of protest, riot, and occupation from 2011 that echoed upheavals that swept Europe in 1848. 

The exhibition features five large-scale panoramic photographs depicting different protests and riots from 2011: the start of the Arab Spring in Tunis on Jan. 12 with sit-ins and protests along Avenue Habib Bourguiba; the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver on June 15; clashes between youth and police in London on Aug. 9; and the arrest of Occupy Wall Street protestors on Brooklyn Bridge in New York on Oct. 1. Douglas created the images by combining meticulous and elaborate re-enactments of the events, high-resolution plate shots of each city site, together with aerial documentary footage.

The exhibition also features a two-channel video installation ISDN, an immersive installation that depicts a fictionalized collaboration between rappers from London’s Grime and Cairo’s Mahraganat music scenes. Titled ISDN, after a now-outdated mode of transmitting high-quality audio over telephone lines, the video imagines rappers from the two cities exchanging beats and lyrics in improvised studios, working across space and time to create music collaboratively.

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Image: Stan Douglas, Vancouver, 2011-06-15, 2021