On a hot August night just over four decades ago, the Downtown East-side (DTES) erupted when police descended upon a group of hip-pies.

The Gastown Riot on Aug. 7, 1971 began after cops set out to break up a "smoke-in," organized to protest undercover police action in the city's counterculture movement.

What started as a peaceful protest turned violent when confusion and over-reaction caused panic in both the police and the protesters.

It is this moment that contemporary artist Stan Douglas captured in Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971, a 13-by-8 metre translucent tempered-glass photo mural that is installed in the atrium of the Woodward's complex not far from that fateful corner of Abbott and Cordova.

The stories of the Douglas work and the riot and what it ended up representing are at the centre of the newly released Arsenal Pulp Press book Stan Douglas Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971.

Officially launched last Friday, the book is a discussion of the event and the lasting implications of urban conflicts. Included in the volume is an interview with the artist and essays from critics Nora Alter, Serge Guilbaut, Sven Lutticken and Jesse Proudfoot.

"The book extends the conversation, which is part of the idea, the idea that it is not an image with a clear message," said Douglas, whose films, videos and photographs have been seen in international exhibitions for over two decades.

"This book provides some historical background, some political background to what this picture can mean in that context."

And one of those meanings is the assault on civil liberties.

"In that moment in 1971 hippies thought they could do whatever they wanted and be wherever they wanted and the powers that be had other ideas," said Douglas who added that the question "Who has the right to be where?" is still a very big part of our lives.

Huge global success aside, where Douglas chooses to be is the DTES. He has lived and worked in the area since finishing art school in 1983.

"I grew up in Point Grey. Point Grey wasn't like it is today. It was professors' kids and that kind of thing," said Douglas, who has been the subject of numerous books and articles including another study of the DTES in the book Every Building on 100 West Hastings Street.

"When I moved to the Eastside, I felt like I moved to Vancouver for the first time. The things that make Vancouver what it is. The proximity to the water, the mountains, the ports, the mix of cultures down here. I felt it was more real. So it became where I live and work."

With that connection to the gritty hood it is no surprise that Douglas would turn to its history for inspiration.

"It was a key moment in the history of this neighbourhood. It changed the way the neighbourhood was perceived," said Douglas about that fateful August night.

"I guess the way city hall was behaving toward the neighbourhood, the mayor [the recently deceased Tom Campbell] at that point didn't like the neighbourhood at all. They wanted to focus more on Granville Island. After this point, they wanted to make it a purely retail area as opposed to a place with mixed living. But it actually became a place for warehousing poverty and vice for the city."

Aside from talking about the new book, Douglas is at work at putting together an app for the Nation-al Film Board, writing a play and finishing up a series of photographs called Disco Angola, which will be shown in New York in March.

dgee@theprovince.com twitter.com/dana_gee