Realms of the Unseen | Jimmy Groen

The Realms of the Unseen

A Counter-Archive of 17 Years of Institutional Abuse and State Negligence in Youth care and Foster Care in the Netherlands

So where is God?

(30 x 40 cm pastel/ print, 1997)

MOTIVATION: Beyond the Euphemisms

This is one of the most comprehensive private archives of trauma art available online, dedicated to the aftermath of state-institutionalized child abuse within the Dutch youth care system. While this archive stems from personal experience, it is not merely a private story; it is a visual testimony of the systemic destruction that has affected many thousands of children in the Netherlands.

In 2019, when the De Winter Commission published its report on violence in the Dutch youth care system, they chose the title “Insufficiently Protected". ” This is a sickening euphemism. For a lot of children who lived through it, the truth was: Not Protected at All. Unlike the victims of natural disasters, wars, or the plight of refugees, our childhoods were not captured by cameras, nor were they reported in newspapers. Our erasure took place in the secrecy of institutions and foster families. The tragedy is that this violence and exclusion did not end when we left the system. We were abandoned in a profound void that remains unacknowledged by society. This is what we call:

I N S T I T U T I O N A L B E T R A Y A L

But this wasn't all. In 1996, I filed an official complaint—accompanied by extended statements from my brother—against the foster parents/ youth care organization as a direct accomplice, with the Public Prosecutor in Utrecht. He decided, with a very short cold note, that he did not wish to investigate anything (Sepot 41). A year prior, the foster mother who severely abused three foster children had been honored by the state with a gold medal of honor in the Order of Orange-Nassau. Meanwhile, for the survivors of the youth care system, reparative justice remains non-existent.

THE CONTENT: Systemic Violence and Imposed Identity Trauma

When I left the youth care system in 1981 I was completely exhausted, ruined. But also furious, confused, terrified... afraid... Some years before, in 1979, after I fled from foster care and became further isolated from the world, I realized that my life would never be 'normal'. I tried to end my life, as I had to start an impossible survival in a world I didn't fit.

This archive documents 17 years (1964-1981) of systemic violence, gender - based torture, forced social isolation, confinement in the dark and dehumanization. Through this archive, I also confront a major taboo: the lifelong consequences of the experimental methods used in Dutch residential children's homes during the 1960s:

Thousands of us were torn from our families as infants and toddlers—a calculated act by the state to shatter all primary bonds. By denying us adult attachment during our formative years, the state forced a "peer-oriented" blueprint upon our lives. The resulting impact on our gender, sexuality, relationships and worldview is the reality we carry today. The state is the architect of who we became, and what we were never allowed to be. The consequences we live with today are not "disorders," but the resilient, healthy reactions of human beings subjected to inhumane systems.

THE COUNTER-ARCHIVE

Former collections of art (1992- 2018) have been almost destroyed for personal reasons. Consisting of approximately 600 works (created primarily between 2019–2025, with a selection of photographs of the original work from 1992–1997), this presented collection serves as a counter-archive. Where the state sought to silence me, this is my voice. What the State dismissed as 'Sepot code 41', we document here in full. Denied access to adequate mental health services for most of my life, creativity became a vital necessity for processing and communication. The archive is still being expanded.

The archive features a diverse range of techniques—from pencil drawings and mixed media to acrylic on canvas and mono print, organized across 13 sections:

Section 3: Addresses systemic (sexual) police violence from the 1980s.
Section 5 & 7: Explore the relationship between trauma, the body, and gender-based violence.
Section 12: A project illustrating the destruction of identity during and following state care

LIVED EXPERIENCES
This work is rooted in lived experiences that the Dutch State only acknowledged decades later (Schadefonds 2020 [cat. most severe victims of violence] , Pleegzorg Nederland, and the Child Care and Protection Board 2018/2019). It also documents the 1986 violation of ECHR Article 3 in a Dutch police cell, confirmed by the National Ombudsman in 2018 as systemic police violence rather than an isolated incident. These violations have been formally reported to the Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council (OHCHR).

WRITTEN CONTEXT

This archive is directly connected to the autobiographical books "Gepleegd" and "Hoe word ik Tim? " published under the pseudonym Jasper Heijting in 2021 and 2022. These books are available in the library of the Netherlands and Flanders.

The Realms of the Unseen:

Content Warning

This archive contains raw and heavy depictions of institutional violence and trauma. For those people with vulnerabilities, please engage with these works at your own pace and prioritize your well-being.

archive #1 Institutional violence,youth/ foster care 1-45

archive #2 Institutional violence, foster care 46-98

archive #3 Police violence and article 3 ECHR 99-120

archive #4 Institutional violence, youth/ foster care 121-162

archive #5 Trauma Art and the Body 163-185

archive #6 Institutional violence, youth and foster care 186-232

archive #7 Institutional violence in foster care: gender based violence 233-280

archive #8 Institutional betrayal and violence in foster care 281-325

archive #9 Trauma art about youth care and violence in foster care 326-377

archive #10 Trauma art about violence in foster care378-428

archive #11 Trauma art 1992-1997 (Portraits, cult?/ Residential) 429-486

archive #12 (Project) Photographs and artwork: "Stigma by Design: The Enduring Pulse of the State 487-538