Ioana Kraft – pioneer in Shanghai

In 2003, Ioana Kraft was one of the China pioneers whose significance only becomes clear in retrospect. At the time, she was greeted by white figures in full-body protective suits upon her first arrival in Shanghai. Back then, the first original SARS (still without “-CoV-2”) was raging in China. “Little did I know that 20 years later, this image would shape our lives in such a way,” Kraft says. The Da Bai now iconically represent lockdowns in Shanghai and elsewhere. As a phenomenon, however, they are not new, as Kraft knows from back then.