La Rinconada (Peru) is the highest village in the world where, thirty years ago, thousands of people, seduced by the 20th Century gold rush, settled on this 5200 meters above sea level landscape to extract gold under a glacier in the Andes. This town lives on illegal mining, so the inhabitants, not only have to work in extreme physical and natural conditions, but also with very poor labor and social conditions.
Without employment contracts, social benefits, drinking water, drainage or waste management, this human settlement survives only thanks to the lust of a stroke of luck as a way out of extreme poverty. The Oro et labora project portrays life in one of the most inhospitable places to live on the planet, and it is also a window to the daily life of people who daily play their lives trying to change their luck.