Spanish artists Ferran Mendoza and Alvaro Sau traveled the Basque-French border region. The artists refer to it as “this kind of frontier land which we call the outdoors,” a territory of Europe where the “most archaic ways of living coexist with the omnipresent industrial world.” Using their cameras, Mendoza and Sau captured in high definition video the residents of this seemingly isolated region in their daily routines and surroundings. The result of their journey is the video Outdoors (2008), a 56-minute work that delivers a composition of portraits. These portraits provide fleeting glimpses of individuals who take pride in their independence, work and know-how. Their knowledge of their tools, their environment and how their bodies interact with each is clear and poetic; they perform their tasks as if every specific activity or action has been choreographed.

In the historic quarries of Carrara, Italy, the cavatori (stonecutters) have worked for centuries excavating large slabs of white marble from the earth. Through a fellowship exchange, artist William Wylie was provided the opportunity to spend time observing the everyday operations and interactions of the men who work in these famous quarries, the very quarries used by artists from Michelangelo to Louise Bourgeois. What at first appears to be a focus on machinery is soon realized to be a study of human activity and control. While trucks and machinery within these digital videos appear to struggle and battle to complete tasks, the cavatori work with their hands - making precision measurements and chiseling slight grooves. The artist captures in his Carrara series, Cavatori, The Block, Dust, and Friction (2006), the gestural engagements of the hand and body as the stonecutters work together, using signals and whistles, to coordinate their movements within the noise and chaos of the industrial site. Together these four videos demonstrate that the actions of work can be perceived as beautiful in and of themselves.