Yalda Afsah (b. 1983, Berlin) works and lives in Berlin, Germany. She is a German-Iranian artist and filmmaker who lives and works in Berlin. Yalda’s practice explores the extent to which filmed space is constructed through cinematic techniques. Her work has been shown at various international exhibitions and film festivals, including Manifesta 13, Locarno Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Berlinische Galerie, Institute of Contemporary Arts London, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, and Kunstverein Lübeck. She has had solo exhibitions at Mönchehaus Museum Goslar (2025), Galerie Molitor, Berlin (2025), JOAN, Los Angeles (2023), Between Bridges, Berlin (2023), HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Graz (2022), and Kunstverein München (2022). In 2023, she was awarded the Hans Purmann Prize and is currently a teaching professor at HFBK, Hamburg.
Related artist videos
- Title
- Jarramplas
- Gallery
- Galerie Molitor, Berlin
- Year
- 2025
- Duration
- 15 min 00 s
- Format & Technical
Video, sound, 16:9
- Contact
- Yalda Afsah, Jarramplas, 2025,Video, sound,15:00 minutes, film still
The Jarramplas Festival has taken place every January for the past hundred years in the western Spanish town of Piornal, in Cáceres. The festival’s name derives from the word “arramplar” (“to steal”) and refers to a figure called the Jarramplas, who, according to legend, was punished for stealing cattle from local farmers. Today, this myth has evolved into an annual ritual held on the feast day of Saint Sebastian in which one person is chosen to dress in a mask, armor, and multi-colored ribbons, and is then pelted with turnips by the townspeople.
In Jarramplas, the artist never reveals the true target of the young participants. Through precise editing and a disorienting soundtrack, the film creates the impression that the youths are fighting one another. Afsah presents a choreographed scenography of the violence that increasingly permeates our daily lives.
Stills