Born in 1960, Vancouver video artist and photographer Stan Douglas traces the alternate art scene's local attempts to institutionalize democracy in his introduction to The Vancouver Anthology: The Institutional Politics of Art (Talonbooks, 1991), which he edited with essays by Keith Wallace, Sara Diamond, Nancy Shaw, Maria Insell, William Hood, Carol Williams, Robin Peck, Robert Linsley, Scott Watson and Marcia Crosby. In 2009, Douglas released a revised second edition.

As well, Douglas is listed as the author of a cumulatively created study Every Building on 100 West Hastings (Contemporary Art Gallery / Arsenal Pulp Press, 2002; 2nd printing Arsenal 2014), co-winner of the City of Vancouver Book Award in 2003.

In 2011, he published Stan Douglas: Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971 (Arsenal 2011) arising from his creation of a gargantuan photo mural depicting Vancouver's infamous 1971 Gastown Riot. The book is a rare attempt to delve into the historical and social ramifications of a pivotal and violent event in Vancouver's history during which police, equipped with newly acquired riot sticks, pummeled relatively peaceful demonstrators during the "Gastown Smoke-in" held to protest harsh anti-marijuana laws. The debacle was the pinnacle of friction between the Georgia Straight 'hippie' newspaper and Mayor Tom Campbell, marking the beginning of the end of the 'peace 'n' love' counter-culture movement in B.C.

Scott Watson and John Fuster provided texts for a UBC Fine Arts Museum catalogue for a Stan Douglas exhibit, Monodramas and Loops (UBC Fine Arts Gallery, 1992).

Coincidental with the world premiere of his innovative but less-than-artistically successful production of a faux noir theatre creation set in Vancouver's Hogan's Alley, Helen Lawrence, co-written with Chris Haddock, which received mixed reviews at the Arts Club in April, Stan Douglas had his career as a photography recognized with a prestigious coffee table book simply called Stan Douglas (Steidl 2014). It was the third annual publication celebrating the winner of the Scotiabank Photography Award, Canada's largest contemporary photography award for an established Canadian artist. 9783869307480 58 Euros

Douglas's work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at prominent institutions worldwide. Major museum collections which hold works by the artist include the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Tate Gallery, London. Stan Douglas is currently Core Faculty in the Graduate Department of the Art Center College of Design in California.

[BCBW 2014] "Art" "Downtown Eastside"

Review of the author's work by BC studies:
Vancouver Anthology