‘Other Joys’ is an ongoing body of work exploring the intensity of special interests through self-portraits, documentary images and constructed scenes. Rooted in Alice Poyzer’s experience as an autistic woman, it becomes both an expression of autistic joy and a call for greater representation.

The feeling surrounding a special interest can be difficult to describe. For many autistic people, it brings warmth, euphoria and excitement. Poyzer began making this work as a way to communicate that feeling visually.

While ‘Other Joys’ sheds light on special interests, the process of making it has also become a way for Poyzer to better understand her own autism. The work reflects on autistic traits including a need for routine and the constant pressure to mask, while also pointing to the continuing lack of autistic representation, especially in relation to autistic women.

Making these photographs creates a space in which Poyzer can be fully herself, unmask and experience autistic joy more freely. What may once have been seen as difference or strangeness is reclaimed here as a source of self-acceptance, understanding and pride.

Artist Bio

Alice Poyzer is a British photographer based in Lincolnshire. Although interested in many photographic forms, her work focuses mainly on documentary, portraiture and constructed imagery. The drive to be seen and heard as a neurodivergent woman acts as a central catalyst in her practice.

Her images have recently been shown at Paris Photo under the Carte Blanche Award and at PhotoVogue in Milan, where she was shortlisted for the PhMuseum Women Photographers Grant. She is the winner of the British Journal of Photography’s Female in Focus Award for her ongoing project ‘Other Joys’. She is also the first artist to undertake a residency at the Paul Smith Foundation, where she is creating work inspired by the Paul Smith Archive.