For six years photographer Pie Aerts lived in close quarters with ‘puesteros’ in Southern Chile: ageing gauchos living in near-total isolation. What began as an exploration of the duality of loneliness gradually, over the years, evolved into a tribute to Aerts’ deepening friendships with these gentlemen. Looking beyond the romanticized image of the strong, silent gaucho, Aerts confronts his own relationship with fear, ageing, memory and the passage of time. The result is ‘Coirón’, a multidisciplinary documentary project published as a book by UK-based GOST Books in September 2026.
Together with
