Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971

Photographer: Stan Douglas

(Canada, 2008)

Not on View

Few developers would plaster a monumental image of a riot on new construction meant to revitalize the neighborhood. But that’s exactly what one did in Vancouver, hiring Stan Douglas, one of Canada’s leading artists, to recreate and photograph a 1971 confrontation between police and pro-marijuana demonstrators. The so-called “smoke-in,” at the building’s location of Abbott and Cordova streets, revealed a clash of social values as the historically poor neighborhood began to gentrify with a middle-class influx, represented by the well-dressed onlookers in the photo’s margins.