I’ve never been on a motorbike, I told a slightly stunned Irene Kotnik — founder of Petrolettes, Europe’s first motorcycle festival for women — shortly after we met and minutes before I was to ride pillion to photograph several dozen women as they tore through Berlin’s streets for International Female Ride Day, 2019. A few, short seconds of silence, then we both grinned and a helmet was rammed on my head. You’re going to love it, Irene promised.

Joyriders is the culmination of photographer Alice Connew’s four year investigation of the women motorcycle riders of Petrolettes. Within what is commonly recognised as a traditionally male sport, these women have unapologetically carved out a space to call their own, defiantly declaring, “we ride too”.

The Petrolettes festival kick-started in 2016 with a mission to elevate, empower and unite women riders across the globe in a powerful, inspiring community. “If you’re a woman on a bike, you’re always the ‘odd one out’. That’s not always bad, even if it can be tiring,” explains Irene. “I was interested in shaking things up, so I set up this little playground I could invite all my girlfriends to.”

Joyriders spotlights the female rider in the context of both an historical and a continued presence. The American Motor Maids established themselves in the 1930s, and similar impediments these trailblazers faced seem to still apply. Many of the women Connew conversed with at moto-gatherings have stories of hindrances: they were told they can’t ride; they’re too small; they don’t have the physical or mental capacity to handle a bike. Those rebuffs have spurred many to prove their naysayers mistaken.

This zealous attitude becomes the core of the series which juxtaposes themes of femininity and the female gaze against machismo and convention.

The women and their bikes move through landscapes that shift between post-industrial, iron graveyards to genteel cultural landmarks, each location harking back to patriarchal histories in which the women atop their bikes, careening down the roads, become vehicles of radical resistance.

Designed by Alice Connew
Essay by Emma Jones
Typography by Catherine Griffiths
Image Prepress by Louis Little, Bread & Butter Studio
Printed in Lithuania
Cloth bound, hardback
48 images (colour and black and white)
215x170mm
ISBN 978-1-0687300-0-9
Limited edition of 300

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