Astrid Butt is the recipient of the 2023 Yorkshire Graduate Award, a unique residency opportunity for a recent graduate from a Yorkshire-based university. Residencies have always been at the heart of YSP, offering opportunities for early career and emerging artists to reflect and move forward with their practice. Astrid began her residency at YSP in October 2023, returning to the park in January and April 2024 while completing her MA in Fine Art at the University of Leeds.

Working across film and performance, Astrid’s practice utilises the grotesque and the surreal to express female anxieties, with a particular focus on generational trauma and the terrors of the body. Her work takes on a feminist perspective, centred around hybridised animal-human characters which she uses to discuss topics including domestic abuse, motherhood and sexual assault.

Butt spent her residency developing her practice and shooting a surreal horror-mystery film which reimagines YSP as a cursed land that turns the women who visit it into animals. The piece is an exploration of womanhood in relation to the human form, and the terror of not being in control of your own body.

The film will be screened in the Boathouse from 24-26 August, where Astrid will be on hand to introduce her work and talk about her residency experience. The Boathouse will be open between 11.00–16.00 during the screening.