In her artistic works, Yalda Afsah continuously explores the extent to which the filmed space becomes a construction through cinematic means. She works at the intersection of documentary and artistic reflection, staging human-animal relationships in her films and thereby dissolving classic narrative constraints. Her starting points are often specific microcosms—such as bullfighting, horse training, or pigeon breeding—which she designs in such a way that intimate forms of communication become visible and larger social contexts resonate. Through formal experiments such as omissions, the conscious use of temporality, and especially sound, she invites viewers to rethink their own position. Her films are often dominated by male-dominated power and care constellations, which she neither condemns nor romanticizes, but rather makes tangible as social dynamics. Her work becomes political when it breaks down hierarchies between nature, culture, and subjectivity and opens up new forms of seeing and thinking.

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, and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein. She has had solo exhibitions at Molitor, Berlin and Mönchehaus Museum, Goslar (both 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 Großen Preis der Stadt Speyer/Hans Purmann Prize.