After decades of a welfare state for everyone, now has come the time for the flexible and resourceful individual. Many see this as an opportunity and grasp it with both hands. People begin their own start-ups or art projects, seeking crowdfunding instead of waiting for subsidy. Residents improve their own neighbourhoods with small-scale initiatives to strengthen the community feeling.

But self-sustainability is not always a choice. It can become a bitter necessity now the government is drawing back from sectors like housing, elderly care, study finance and culture. The ‘participation society’, a term coined by the Dutch, calls on everyone to join in and take up their own responsibility instead of leaning on the government. BredaPhoto will reflect on both the advantages and disadvantages of this current trend. We will look for the creativity as well as the vulnerability of the self-sustaining individual.

YOU contains a selection of works from all exhibiting photographers of BredaPhoto 2016: Mohammad Abdulazez, Niels Ackermann, Morgan Ashcom, Mathieu Asselin, Eva Beazar, Daleen Bloemers, Olivier van Breugel & Simone Mudde, Antoine Bruy, Sander van Bussel, Alessandro Calabrese, Alejandro Cegarra & Manaure Quintero, Jia Dai Teng Fei, Léo Delafontaine, Peter DiCampo , & Austin Merrill, Thomas Van Den Driessche, Károly Effenberger, Petros Efstathiadis, Casper Fitzhue, Victor Goemaere, Kirill Golovchenko, Mike Harris, Claudia Heinermann, Jan Hoek, Inge Hondebrink, Hideyuki Ishibashi, Johan van der Keuken, Carl De Keyzer, Yannis Kontos, Ine Lamers, Lin Zhipeng, Jan Q. Maschinski, Flor Maesen, Lucie Marsmann, Axel De Marteau, Ralf Mitsch, Baudouin Mouanda, Anika Neuß, Pauline Niks & Jesse Cremers, Sebastian Palmer, Zoë Parton, Paolo Pellegrin, Robin de Puy, Isabel Rottiers, David Rozemeyer, Jaap Scheeren, Julius Schrank, Bryan Schutmaat, Satomi Shirai, Alexey Shlyk, Bianca Sistermans, Luuk Smits, Chantal Stoman, Lise Straatsma, Koen Theys, Thomas Vandenberghe, Nina Verbruggen, Danny Veys, Siniša Vlajkovic & Mohamed Somji, Coralie Vogelaar, Antoine Wagner, Nanó Wallenius, Erien Withouck, Michael Wolf, Paolo Woods & Gabriele Galimberti, Xiaoxiao Xu, Xu Yong, Brigitte Zieger