The Realms of the Unseen

A Counter-Archive , created between 2019 and 2025 on 17 years of state sanctioned violence and police brutality by Jimmy Groen 

So where is God?  

From a destroyed collection, orig. pastel on paper  50 x 70 cm 1997

Motivation and background

The artworks in this archive were never made to be published, they are  the results of a very personal process that started in 1992 to transform personal struggles and feelings from my childhood into images.  The driving force behind publishing this archive is simple.

When a state has no restorative and reparative justice for those many citizens who paid with everything they had—losing their parents, children, family, home, childhood, identity, and future—with a government that actively concealed these life stories, while blaming the victimd for the complex consequences of state -sanctioned violence and neglect, making that reality visible becomes an act of absolute necessity. 

Unseen

In my case, the Dutch system actively protected the abusers and further complicated my life:

 

  • The Dutch state honored the foster mother who severely abused  me and two other foster children with a State Medal in the Order of Orange Nassau (Digibron 14-09-1995, Goud Woudenberg).
  • The official criminal complaint filed by my brother and me in 1996 (within the term) against the foster parents about almost fourteen years of systematic abuse with lasting injury  was  dismissed by the Public Prosecutor as sepot 41 (too little to investigate)
  • Five years after leaving state care,  I was confronterend with  antisemitic rhetoric  and  Nazi based violence by the Dutch police
  • For reasons of exclusion,I have been actively rejected by  Dutch mental health care  for almost my entire life. 
  • Rejected from all diversity and inclusion organizations in the Netherlands, due to  being made this way  which is  "invalid identity. In reality this means deliberate 'social death' 
  • Never any reparative justice, rehabilitation or protection by the Dutch state, 

This archive is a testimony of what I personally experienced as a continuous war in peacetime in the Netherlands. The human rights violations (ECHR 3 and8) have been included in the newsletter of the EG (European Group of Deviance and Social Control) .

A formal petition to the European Union regarding the human rights violations by the Dutch state under case number 0754/2026 was dismissed by the European Union. 

Recognition and Apologies

Contrarily, formal recognition was given  by independent official bodies in the Netherlands.

  • Schadefonds Geweldsmisdrijven  (Dutch government injury Compensation Fund)  Both violence in youth care 1966-1981 and  the 1986 police violence were recognised in the  category of most severe violence (category 6) in 2021 and 2026 . 
  • Official personal apologies were received from Pleegzorg Nederland (Dutch Foster Care) and the Raad voor de Kinderbescherming (Child Protection Council), in 2018 and 2019 published in " Gepleegd", written under pseudonym Jasper Heijting 

About the Archive 

The approximately 600 artworks in this archive span a period of six years (2019-2025) and are the saved part of a much larger collection. Early art  has been destroyed in 2002 and later in 2018, comprising many hundreds of works including 3D objects.

In addition to the work in the archive, 13 original photographs show a lived reality.

This archive coexists alongside the autobiographical books Gepleegd and Hoe word ik Tim? written under the pseudonym Jasper Heijting, see in the section Published Books on this page with a download link to the book.

    Content Warning

    This archive contains raw and  heavy depictions of institutional violence and trauma, that some people may find disturbing.

    PUBLISHED  ZINES

     

    Only boys... 25 portraits of Queer identity of young boys

    English

    2023  EAN   9789464810332

    Hidden pain  35 Works on Violence in the Dutch Youth Care System

    English, French, Dutch

    2021   EAN   9789464431926

    Published books by Jimmy Groen written under the pseudonym

    'Jasper Heijting'

    Gepleegd   [English: CommittedGepleegd, published by  Tobi Vroegh Amsterdam

    Editors: Ilona Barsony, Claire Hülsenbeck, Anouk de Jong, Rohan Karbet 

    Executive Summary 

    Jasper Heijting's 2020 ego document, Gepleegd,  ["Committed"] offers a candid, firsthand account of enduring long-term abuse  and torture within the Dutch foster care system. This autobiography highlights the author's struggle with extreme trauma,  imposed gender issues  and fragmentation of the mind, written from the child perspective.  The book provides crucial context for understanding Jimmy's trauma art archive.

    Language: Dutch

    Available in the libraries of the Netherlands and Flanders and bookstores.

    2020  EAN   9789078761785

    Read the first revised chapter of this book  in English

    A first raw translation in English of the book Gepleegd (Committed)  was created by AI (€96,-); this translation is not perfect but offers a profound insight in the basic story of the archive.

    Download the full autobiographical book Committed in PDF as a first  raw translation in English language  by AI

    Hoe word ik Tim? 

    Executive Summary 
    Hoe word ik Tim? ("How Do I Become Tim?") is the second volume of Jasper Heijting’s ego-documentary series. It traces the lifelong confusion of state-sanctioned identity destruction and imposed attachment issues, and details the psychological phenomenon of a fragmented inner world. In 1998 Jimmy was officially labeled with a 'dissociative identity disorder (DID,) but never received any mental health care or support.

    The book describes with dialogues the desperate search to become a schoolboy, after foster care,  the exclusion from society and mental health care, the problems with time, age and belonging, and finally the construction of  a tangible Realm of Boys to live in.

    Most importantly, this volume documents the exact historical turning point where the author begins to use raw visual art  as his sole mechanism for survival when all societal, medical, and legal institutions utterly fail him. The story itself is a metaphor for a fragmented identity.

    Language: Dutch. Image cover: Jo Coort

    Available in the library of Flanders (Belgium) and bookstores.

    2021   EAN  9789464068153