Supporting Document for Developing your Creative Practice Application

Lead Artist: Fionnuala Kavanagh

Project Title: FAR-RIGHT BROTHER: From Literary Critique to Short-Form Moving Image

Background

I am a social issues writer from the UK with a degree in philosophy and psychology from Durham University. I love writing because it helps me to better understand things that puzzle me – usually, things to do with human behaviour, and how society structures itself around, and in spite of, the quirks of human behaviour.  

I studied journalism in Melbourne and worked for Amnesty International Australia, conducting interviews and writing articles about migration issues. My time in Berlin started as a content writer for Studio Olafur Eliasson's Little Sun. I have since worked on an exhibition about gender equality for the V&A Friday Late, written for the Berlin magazines Exberliner and LOLA, and worked for Steady (Germany’s equivalent to Substack). 

I have received funding for my creative work from: 

The Guerter Stifftung, the Berlin Senate, the Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture,  the EU’s iPortunas mobility scheme, and the Arvon Foundation, All3Media and Channel 4.

Creative Practice

Over the past six years, I have developed my practice as a social issues writer and multi-disciplinary artist who likes to experiment with ways of bringing my social commentary to new audiences. I have published a darkly funny social commentary novel about immigration in Berlin (I Keep My Shadow Light with Lost & Found Books) launched in May 2026 with 2 sold-out events, and created a series of accompanying posters, bringing my social commentary out of the literary world and onto the streets of Berlin.

I Keep My Shadow Light social commentary poster series

Examples of poster text, from novel extracts

I Keep My Shadow Light novel cover

I also wrote an experimental essay collection looking at why young men are being radicalised by the far-right, 4 of the 20 essays have been published so far, and I have begun experimenting with some accompanying short-form videos, and wrote a spin-off feature film screenplay, because I realised that a general audience don’t read much, but they do like watching reels and TV.

Rage Rooms: Essay Extract (Published in the Martello Journal 2025)

Paying to smash up crockery is a new trend. It’s spread from the stressed-out worker bees in Japan to the hen-do parties, to teenage girls and grandmas in small places like Norwich. Not only is it a fun group activity for a Saturday out in town, but it is therapeutic. It helps people process their breakups, their grief, and all that pent-up anger. Most of the punters, ready to swing a sledgehammer and let out a scream, are women. 

There is little evidence of a biological difference in men's and women’s capacity for anger. If I hear someone grunt ‘testosterone’ to try and win at this point rather than listen to what else I have to say here, I’ll kick them in the nuts. 

Here’s another biology lesson. There are secret chambers within women. Some of them are due to the fact that science hasn’t been interested in setting sail into the female anatomy and ‘discovering’ our parts. Instead of a money-fueled mission to Venus, they poke around with a penis in a cave with the lights turned off, while fantasising about Mars. 

When we, women, go within ourselves, there are a lot of echoey sounds, as loneliness passes through the corridor of bolted shut chambers like a cold draft. The clitoris chamber is where we catch the loneliness in an embrace and lie down with it. To touch it, and transform. Curl into a foetal position, hold ourselves, and feel warm. That’s the nice end of things. There’s a darker, danker part of the corridor, however, where the loneliness is scared to tread because of the rumours of the bad things that happen to it there. The bolted door full of cracks and a gap at the bottom sucks it in with a whirling force – not sugar and light spun into pink candy floss, not a vacuum cleaner working nights. No! Loneliness gets whipped up into a hurricane of rage, just like in men. 

A lot of this loneliness-fuelled rage comes from frustrations with having so many of these chambers locked by men. Fear to walk freely through the streets, to travel wherever we want alone, to wear what we want. To be me, free of how you see me. Not the cockblock, nor the wife material. Not the one who is naturally better at cleaning your piss from the toilet seat. Naturally better at cooking for your ungrateful parents who don’t know any better, who expect nothing less from me, and nothing more from you. When I’m operating in this role, outside forces move my arms to smooth down my skirt, stiff like a plastic doll. I feel so lonely. In your world, you keep pruning me and pruning me. Cut back to a twig, who knows what vitality is still stuck underground, and so I am lonely, because I miss myself.

And when we raise our complaints, you spot an opportunity for a debate. You list ‘feminism’ as an interest on your dating profile because you think it will help get you laid. You bring up the US’s latest abortion laws at a dinner party, to show you are engaged with women’s issues, but you don’t come with me to the clinic. When we raise our complaints, you put on your grubby purple t-shirt and point at someone else. You point at my brother and co. Those long-bearded, skin-headed, body-building, weasley-looking, scowly-faced Anon blokes who hold their hands up and admit ‘I don’t respect women’. You’ll scoff at the spelling mistakes in their hateful tweets, yet publish their misogynistic Rules for Life, because in your world, you know they will sell.

Reviews for I Keep My Shadow Light

“I loved reading this book, it’s clever and timely and at moments really hilarious. It blends social commentary with really good dark humour. Engaging and insightful read exploring what it means to find your place in the world.” Karla Matic

“THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD. I inhaled every word of it. The characters and the flair of Berlin feel so real and that comes from someone who has spent 10 years in this madhouse of a city.” Jaqueline Louan 

“I loved this book!!! Fionnuala writes with such sharpness, wit and vulnerability. I loved following the characters around Berlin as they navigate their new lives. A brilliant novel. I bought multiple copies to give my friends :-)” Cecilia Cadman 

Press for I Keep My Shadow Light

The Berliner Magazine Interview: What does it mean to belong in Berlin? (online and print) (May 2026)

The Berliner It’s Lit social media slider (May 2026)

The Madrid Review Podcast Interview: Writing about Berlin (May 2026)

Wahlheymat Review: Finding Trauma Instead of Belonging in I Keep My Shadow Light (June 2026)

Book Launch #1 May 7th 2026

The focused shift in my practice

Alongside my writing, I am starting to develop video work that is shaped for where attention is being held and influenced. I will research effective far-right radicalisation video techniques to produce artistic counter-content. My goal is to create accessible work, appealing to younger audiences vulnerable to far-right radicalisation, thereby broadening the reach of my social commentary beyond traditional literary circles. 

Why this project matters to me

On a personal note, my sweet and sensitive brother was radicalised by the far-right, which is why this topic remains a sustained artistic concern in my practice. I want my artistic work to help bridge the growing gap in society between left and right, through increasing understanding of why young men are being radicalised, and encouraging empathy.  My objective is not political activism, it is specifically about how the format can be analysed through a creative lens and if artistic counter-content can generate a different kind of dialogue.