If All That Changes Quickly

18 min | Video | Spain & Canada | 2018
















If All That Changes Quickly
Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, Ryan Ferko
18 min | Video | Spain & Canada | 2018

If All That Changes Quickly takes as its starting point the first full scale house burn tests from 1958, conducted by the National Research Council of Canada. Several years ago the artists acquired the original 16mm colour film of these tests from the National Archives of Canada. This began a trajectory of domestic fire safety research, following its shift from burning houses in situ, through to laboratory tests, and then into the psychological study of how people react in fire emergencies. This new film combines the 1958 NRC archival material of the burn tests, archival documentation and case studies from the 1960s and 70s psychological field of “empathy studies”, and more recent neurological research on the same subject, along with original material shot in studio. The resulting film starts with a specific location – Aultsville, Ontario – where these first burns were conducted but then finds itself concerned with a more broad political context of insecurity and its manifestation in reactionary populist politics.
–Chris Kennedy, Toronto International Film Festival 

Made with the support of Tabakalera Centre for International Culture, Donostia/San Sebastián, Spain & Canada Council for the Arts


If All That Changes Quickly, online screener | for exhibition copy & permissions please contact parastoo.faraz.ryan@gmail.com



If All That Changes Quickly, film stills



Exhibition history

  • Film works of Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, Ryan Ferko, EXIS, Seoul, South Korea, June 2022



  • “What the Complete Image Could Be: Retrospective of Video Works by Ryan Ferko, Parastoo Anoushahpour, and Faraz Anoushahpour”, Microlights, Milwaukee, USA, Sept 29, 2019: http://www.microlightscinema.org/What-the-Complete-Image-Could-Be

  • “What the Complete Image Could Be: Retrospective of Video Works by Ryan Ferko, Parastoo Anoushahpour, and Faraz Anoushahpour”, Toronto International Film Festival Wavelengths Series, Toronto, Canada, Dec 4, 2018


– parastoo.faraz.ryan@gmail.com –
Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, Ryan Ferko