Jasmijn Labadie

/ Jasmijn Labadie (the Netherlands,

1985) has been studying photography at

AKV|St.Joost in Breda since 2006. She has

had a training placement with artist-photographer

Paul Kooiker and has already

fulfilled various photographic commissions:

for the Netherlands’ Association of

Women Doctors, the Breda City Archives,

Intermediair Magazine and Amsterdam’s

Emma Children’s Hospital.

Labadie’s work Infection Hysteria explores

the social unrest that swept through the

Netherlands in 2009, triggered by the outbreak

of swine flu and fuelled by events

abroad. So intense and widespread was

this unrest that in many ways it resembled

a craze. Labadie explores this mass (over)

reaction to a phenomenon that began with

something as small – and as uncontrollable

– as a sneeze. The mass civil unrest and the

measures taken by government ultimately

magnified the perceived threat and generated

even more fear and panic. The resulting

situation was almost beyond belief.