Henki B. (1962) has never been one to follow the script. At 15, he left school, drawn more to the open road of life than the rigid structure of institutions. Conventional jobs never suited him—whenever he tried, the urge to chase his own creative impulses always won. His path has been winding and unpredictable, full of stories he hints at but never fully reveals. It’s undeniable that Henki has turned freedom into both his art and his way of life. By the time he was 20, he had lived in more places than most do in a lifetime—squats, canal boats, rooftops, grown up on the streets of Amsterdam. To him, it was a way of carving out his own space in a city that both fascinated and frustrated him.

Henki’s art was never meant for galleries; it belonged to the streets, to the people. Bridges once full of light and air had become heavy with thousands of padlocks. Tourists saw them as romantic, but to Henki, they were chains—symbols of possession, not love. He made it his silent mission to remove them. Some called him a vandal. Others, a poet of resistance. Henki never cared either way. He lived by his own rules, creating without limits in a world obsessed with control.