Prior to photography, Donald Weber originally trained as an architect and worked with urban theorist Rem Koolhaas’ Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He freelanced for the international press in places as diverse as Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia and South America before taking aim at the bigger picture: the growth of insoluble World Power. He has since devoted himself to the study of how Power deploys an all-encompassing theater for its subjects; what he records is its secret collaboration with both masters and victims.
Recent major projects include The Underclass and Its Bosses: Crime & Punishment in Ukraine, which won the Lange-Taylor Documentary Prize; Bastard Eden, Our Chernobyl, which won the photolucida Book Award; The Drunken Bride, Russia Unveiled, completed with a Guggenheim Fellowship; Opera of Power, which won a Canada Council Fellowship; and his latest book, Interrogations, about post-Soviet authority in Ukraine and Russia, released by Schilt Publishers, winter 2012.
His work has appeared in numerous international publications, including Amica, Der Speigel, The Guardian, Newsweek, New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Stern, TIME and The Walrus. He has worked with the NGO’s Medecins sans Frontieres, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and War Child. Weber’s photography projects have been exhibited at festivals and galleries worldwide, including the United Nations, Museum of the Army at Les Invalides in Paris, the Portland Museum of Art and the Alice Austen House Museum in New York. Other major awards include the Duke and Duchess of York Photography Prize, two World Press Photo awards, PDN’s 30 and he was named an Emerging Photo Pioneer by American Photo.
Currently Don is working on his next project, The Drowned City, which explores the City inundated by its technological future. He is a member of the acclaimed VII Photo Agency.
