So where is God?  (30 x 40 cm  print)

From Destroyed collection orig. pastel on paper 1997

In 2019, the Dutch De Winter Commission presented its report on violence within the youth care system, entitled "Insufficiently Protected." This is a sickening euphemism. It should have been titled: "Not Protected at All, not even a Second".

Motivation

This archive was never created to be published, it is a very personal act of processing. Other collections of many hundreds artworks have been destroyed. The driving force behind publishing this archive of approximately 600 artworks  from the last period (2019–2025) is simple: when a state has no restorative and reparative justice for citizens who paid with everything they had—losing their parents, children, family, home... their childhood, humanity, identity, safety, and their future—making that trauma visible becomes an act of absolute necessity.

The Netherlands has no system of support, mental health care, inclusion, protection and rehabilitation for those that leave the state care system. Contrarily, the state honored the foster mother who severely abused three of foster children with a state Medal in the Order of Orange Nassau (Digibron 14-09-1995, Goud Woudenberg, bottom of page). Meanwhile, one year later the official complaint of my brother and me  within the term was dismissed by the Public Prosecutor as sepot 41.

This archive is a testimony of deep state neglect, experienced as a war in peace time.. A petition for the European Union about violation of ECHR art 3 and 8 has started under number 0754/2026.

Content

The images in the archive span a period of six years and are part of a much  larger oeuvre. Many works from the same period were destroyed in 2025 due to a minimalist lifestyle. The use of iconic and stereotypical colors and symbols is visible in large parts of the work and reflects gender, names, untold stories, reflections, feelings. The materials used are diverse—from pure charcoal to mixed media, mono- prints, and collages.

The random order of production year and depiction is metaphorical for the trauma itself -  a complex trauma has no structure at all. 

Recognition and Apologies

The autobiographical urgency of this collection and the reality of the underlying trauma are formally recognized by independent official bodies, including the Schadefonds Geweldsmisdrijven  (cat.6)  personal apologies of Pleegzorg Nederland and Raad voor de Kinderbescherming. 

Autobiography

This visual archive coexists alongside the autobiographical books Gepleegd and Hoe word ik Tim?, authored in Dutch under the pseudonym Jasper Heijting and are available in the library of the Netherlands and Flanders. These volumes contain the official apologies and describe Jimmy's fragmented childhood, as well as his later experiences and parts of his creative journey. The first chapter of Gepleegd is available in English. 

The origin: The French Netherlands & The Realm of Boys

Jimmy’s history within the Dutch youth care system is an epic of absolute survival. Born in early 1962 in Apeldoorn, he was separated from his mother in the autumn of 1964 and placed into a cold institutional world where he survived through peer-oriented attachment which became a blueprint for life. At age four, he was abruptly removed from his toddler group and placed with a foster family. The following thirteen years (1966–1979) were spent in a state-sanctioned foster environment engineered around military discipline and fundamentalist religious suppression. The explicit goal was to permanently alter his gender of birth, sense of self and origin.

THEY FAILED.

During his primary school years, Jimmy claimed absolute sovereignty over his own mind. Confined to darkness for many weeks at a time, he survived by turning to beautiful, colorful circle shaped hallucinations inspired by a single fraction of light that reached his eyes. In the extreme violent conditions, he fragmented into self-created worlds, reigning as King of his imaginary island, The French Netherlands, which was constantly beset by enemies and natural disasters.

Guided by his imagination and the profound companionship of his stuffed animals—the cat Bimbam, the small horse Pietertje, and the pink elephant Dombo—he outlasted a decade of  systematic gender based torture. Jimmy endured this hostile environment by mentally retreating to the safety of his original toddler group. In his mind, he created The Realm of Boys: an imaginary world where only little boys lived and ruled. 

At age seventeen, he broke free from his foster parents, surviving his final years in the system abandoned on the streets and in forests. In 1981, Jimmy left state care without qualifications or support—carrying permanent physical and psychological injuries, but carrying something much greater: his freedom.

Content Warning

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

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 [1986]  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, early/  Residential) 429-486

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

archive #13  Trauma art on institutional violence 541- 617

Related pages (artwork on trauma & identity):

Tim draws back   Work from Tim  about peer - only/ peer- oriented attachment in a children's home 

Soft queer rebels      portraits about queer identity in childhood, from the identity restoration studio (2021-2023)

They are everywhere but nobody knows who they are about marginalized, erased and voiceless identities by Tim and Alex

PUBLISHED  ZINES

Published books under the pseudonym

'Jasper Heijting'

Gepleegd   [English: Committed]  Gepleegd, published by  Tobi Vroegh Amsterdam

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

Executive Summary for Academics, Jurists, and Curators:
Gepleegd ("Committed") is a harrowing, autobiographical ego-document that exposes the catastrophic reality of state-sanctioned foster care abuse and institutional violence under the Dutch youth care system (jeugdzorg). Written with acute psychological precision, the book documents the systematic dehumanization of a child and the profound fragmentation of the human psyche as a survival mechanism against absolute terror.

Language: Dutch

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

2020  EAN   9789078761785

Read the first chapter of this book  in English

Hoe word ik Tim?  [English: How do I become Tim?]     

Executive Summary for Academics, Jurists, and Curators:
Hoe word ik Tim? ("How Do I Become Tim?") is the critical second volume of Jasper Heijting’s ego-documentary series. It traces the lifelong complex aftermath of state-sanctioned childhood torture and details the psychological phenomenon of a fragmented inner world (also labeled as Dissociative Identity Disorder). Most importantly, this volume documents the exact historical turning point where the author begins to use raw visual art (art brut) as his sole mechanism for survival when all societal, medical, and legal institutions utterly fail him.

Language: Dutch. Image cover: Jo Coort

Available in the library of Flanders and bookstores.

2021   EAN  9789464068153