When I see my little brother putting on my mother's heels and parading around in them, I see my father startle, he finds that difficult. That hurts me. I've never felt completely accepted at home, still not totally. Growing up in a Christian household with somewhat conservative parents, though they wouldn't say so themselves, was difficult. I try to clear the way for my brothers so that they accept themselves for who they are. I think that from an early age children get a good representation of who they are, that that will prevent many unhappy teenagers and people.
That's how I got the idea for the Queer. project. I was given a school assignment by the Netherlands Center for Youth Health (NCJ in Dutch) to change the way young people view advertising. I found this a difficult assignment, but it immediately appealed to me. Also because I feel a good connection with the youth and improving their influence. I decided to create positive advertising as a counterpart to existing commercials that encourage negative behavior.
I wanted to normalize being queer more and achieve more queer visibility. I hope that by seeing representation a lot, young people can and dare to be themselves more. It must be more visible and accepted. I wanted to create an inclusive image. The words queer show that the person is queer, but also just a human, from the outside there is not much else to see. Everyone is the same inside. It's totally okay to be queer. You are queer. I wanted to make stickers and posters out of this. These are easy to spread around the city so that young people see them a lot.
