In A Male-Dominated Motorcycling World, These Women Are Finding Independence

Bristol-based Kiwi artist and photographer Alice Connew talks to Dan Ahwa about her new book, Joyriders, a visual love letter to a gang of trailblazing motorcyclists who find their power away from the patriarchy, and out on the open road.

“My horizon has been very limited. Now I am going to broaden it.”

The quote from Effie Hotchkiss in 1916 has reverberated through the generations, a feminist declaration of independence as a pioneering motorcyclist who completed a 14,500km round trip ride from New York to San Francisco and back on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle-sidecar combination with her mother, Avis.

Women unapologetically taking up space through their passion for motorcycling provide the foundation for a new book entitled Joyriders by award-winning Bristol-based New Zealand artist and photographer Alice Connew, who herself knows the value of being a woman on the move.

“The concept of home is simple though,” she says. “It’s just everywhere my family is. We’re so dispersed, so that could be Bristol where I live with my partner, or Karekare and Foxton, but it’s also London, Santiago and Sydney where my siblings are, or Berlin where much of my chosen family still are. Aotearoa will always be home though, I try to get back as often as I can.”

Published by Alice’s own boutique art publishing house, Gloria Books, alongside Auckland-based designer Katie Kerr, Joyriders is a five-year project that celebrates women’s contributions to motoring culture away from the patriarchal gaze.

Following all-women motorcycle group the Petrolettes over four years, the image-rich book is a compelling documentation of the group’s mission to challenge the status quo. Alice’s vivid photographs move with riders through industrial ports, iron graveyards and tree-lined roads, as they gather in front of cultural landmarks for festivals and protests, and stop to apply red lipstick in their rear-view mirrors while adorned in leather biker fashion.

“[I’ve] always been quietly interested in this subculture and an enormous draw for me was definitely the aesthetic,” says Alice. “I still think of an early issue of Russh magazine, when it was edited by Stevie Dance, that included a photoshoot inspired by moto-culture. Leather jackets, white tank tops and pink lipstick - what’s not to love there?

What began as the Petrolettes festival in 2016 with a view to elevating, empowering and uniting women riders across the globe was soon cancelled in 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions. Its recent revival, the Petrolettes Rällly, is described by organisers as an annual motorcycle outride event for women. It became a way for riders to create their own ride-outs anywhere in the world by activating cities and towns as stop-off locations.

“Going back to the start of the project in 2019, it was all rather serendipitous, really,” Alice recalls.

“A friend of a friend put me in touch with Irene Kotnik, founder of Petrolettes, as she needed a photographer to join 50 or so riders for a ride out through Berlin celebrating International Female Ride Day. I’d always been quietly interested in the motorcycle subculture but didn’t have an ‘in’ as it were, so when this opportunity came up, I jumped at the chance.

“Irene and I hit it off - after her initial surprise that I’d never been on a motorbike at that point - and for the next four years I joined the various events and adventures, shooting what would eventually become the Joyriders book.”

While Alice admits that at first glance, the concept of Joyriders feels niche in that it focuses on a unique subculture of women motorcycle riders, she says it’s the stories of the riders that have a universal message of independence and resilience.

“Almost all the riders I spoke to had experiences of being told they can’t ride; they’re too small; they don’t have the mental or physical capacity to handle a bike,” says Alice. “Despite this persistent negativity, courage, community and resistance stood out to me on both ends of a global/local scale.

“Many women at Petrolettes events did their first solo long-haul journeys on their bikes, through multiple countries, in order to attend.

“Behnaz Shaefi talked of learning to ride in Iran, an illegal undertaking for a woman. In 2015 she became the first female professional motorbike racer in the Islamic Republic and the Middle East and in 2017 managed to get permission from Iran’s sports administration to put on the country’s first-ever all-female race, after a three-year battle for permission.”

It’s these unique stories that make Joyriders a welcome insight into a subculture dedicated to personal self-expression.

“So many of the women spoke of the utter love of the freedom that comes with owning a bike,” says Alice. “The ability to just get on it and go, leaving responsibilities at home was described as bliss. For me, what Joyriders achieves is showcasing that individual freedom and then the choice to come together as a group, as a community, to share in the love for this sport/hobby.”

“That there is value in gathering, showing up and doing something together as an act of joyful resistance.”

The book also provided Alice the opportunity to explore a sport of which she had no previous experience while traversing a diverse European landscape through the eyes of the riders.

“Irene [Kotnik] actually put it best in an interview when she said that ‘sitting in a car it’s like you have a picture frame around you, but with a motorbike, you’re in the picture, right in the middle’,” says Alice.

“Whether you’re zipping through a city, careening down the autobahn or weaving down country roads there’s a real sense of being part of the landscape in a way that is so removed when you’re in a car. You really feel people’s surprise and awe as they stop to stare at your group; the world feels accessible and, though it’s cliche, there is that element of freedom that comes with the speed and feeling the elements around you as your ride.”

In her essay for Joyriders, Emma [Jones] says, “to ride is to transcend the borders of a frame that attempts to hold something (or someone) in. It is an opportunity to brush right up against the world as an active participant, instead of a passive observer.”

Joyriders by Alice Connew, published by Gloria Books, $95 is available from Gloria-books.com and independent bookstores across Aotearoa.

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