Stan Douglas: Tales of Empire
December 5, 2025 – March 22, 2026
This winter, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection is proud to present Stan Douglas: Tales of Empire, a focused survey of the acclaimed Vancouver-based artist’s career. For over four decades, Douglas has been recognized as one of Canada’s most important contemporary artists, with a significant international reputation across Europe, the United States, and beyond.
Tales of Empire presents bodies of work by Douglas that examine various colonization efforts globally, over time—an enduring theme that shapes much of his work. Curated by McMichael Executive Director and Chief Curator Sarah Milroy, the exhibition brings together five major photographic series that reflect Douglas’s incisive investigations into history, memory, and the impress of empire on both landscapes and lives.
Stan Douglas (b. 1960), Act III, Scene XII: In which Polly Reveals Herself to be a Woman Amid Discourse on Love with Pohetohee and Cawwawkee, 2024, inkjet print on Dibond aluminum, 150.5 x 150.5 cm, courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner. © Stan Douglas.
Stan Douglas (b. 1960), Quinta Rosario / "Fructuoso Rodríguez" Secondary School, Vedado, 2004, chromogenic print on aluminum, 121.9 x 139.1 cm, courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner. © Stan Douglas.
Stan Douglas (b. 1960), Act I, Scene XIV: In which Polly, with the Help of Damaris, Convinces Mrs. Ducat to Punish Her Husband by Granting Her Her Freedom, 2024, inkjet print on Dibond aluminum, 150.5 x 150.5 cm, courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner. © Stan Douglas.
The Exhibition Includes Works From
- The Nootka series (1996) explores the northwest coast of Vancouver Island, mapping the traces of Indigenous presence on the land, and the historic points of contact between settler and Indigenous peoples. This series will be installed alongside historical paintings by A.Y. Jackson, creating a provocative dialogue between Douglas’s contemporary interventions and the visual legacy of the Group of Seven.
- The Cuba series (2005), which reveals the successive waves of colonial, political and capitalist intervention in Cuba, by Spanish, then American, then Soviet forces, as reflected in Havana’s layered architectural history.
- The Western series (2006), set in the interior of British Columbia, captures a landscape altered by resource extraction, exposing the environmental consequences of settler-driven development.
- The Klatsassin series (2006), a gritty, cinematic series of portraits, imagines a cast of characters caught in a re-imagining of a brutal episode of Indigenous resistance and colonial oppression in 19th century British Columbia, blurring the boundaries between fiction and historical memory.
- The Enemy of all Mankind (2024), this theatrical series draws inspiration from the 18th-century play Polly (1777), the satirical sequel to John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera. With its costumed cast of characters, Douglas restages scenes of decadence, farce, and misadventure in the Caribbean, offering a biting critique of colonial greed, corruption, and exploitation reimagining Enlightenment satire for a contemporary audience.
About the Artist
Stan Douglas (b. 1960, Vancouver) is an internationally renowned artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans photography, film, video, installation, and theatre. Since the 1980s, he has created technically ambitious works that explore the complexities of history, collective memory, and the lasting imprint of colonialism. Through innovative uses of both analog and digital media, Douglas restages pivotal historical moments—often at cultural, political, or social tipping points—blurring the boundaries between documentary and fiction, cinema and visual art.
Douglas has been featured at the Venice Biennale five times, most recently in 2022 when he represented Canada with the exhibition 2011 ≠ 1848 and the video installation ISDN. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions at major institutions worldwide, including the Centre Pompidou, MoMA, and the National Gallery of Canada and is held in leading museum collections across North America and Europe. Recent projects include a permanent public commission at New York’s Moynihan Train Hall (2021) and the recent survey Stan Douglas: Ghostlight at Bard College’s Hessel Museum of Art in 2025. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Audain Prize for Visual Art (2019); the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (2016); the third annual Scotiabank Photography Award (2013); and the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography, New York (2012). In 2021, Douglas was knighted as a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, and in 2023 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Simon Fraser University, Greater Vancouver. In 2024 he was appointed to the Order of Canada. Douglas lives and works in Vancouver.
Sponsors
Generously Supported By
Robin and Malcolm Anthony
Debra and Barry Campbell
Carol Gray
Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation
Elske and Jim Kofman
Kololian Family
Liza Mauer and Andrew Sheiner
Julia and Gilles Ouellette
Eleanor and Francis Shen
Lesley Stowe and Geoffrey Scott
Acquisition Sponsor
Claudia Beck
Media Partner
