The Lonely Men Who Work in Patagonia, at the End of the World

Dutch photographer Pie Aerts and Australian filmmaker Matías Bolla have created a photo book and feature film documenting the lives of puesteros—isolated ranch workers in Chilean Patagonia who spend weeks or months alone tending livestock in remote cabins. The project reveals not only the profound solitude these aging men endure, but also their precarity and dispossession, as they work land they will never own with minimal pension or social welfare protections. The work highlights a disappearing way of life, as younger generations reject this demanding and poorly compensated labor.