Without confessions and guilty pleas, courts everywhere would grind to a halt in an instant; over 90 percent of all charges in the Russian judicial system end in guilty pleas, and only experienced criminals or highly-educated defendants stand a chance in any justice system. It is not designed to give everyone a fair trial; this is what the police are doing behind closed doors--the feudal system’s trial by ordeal is still much with us. Trial by ordeal--that is what is going on here, but closed to the public.

This latest work-in-progress, Interrogations, is an ongoing project about a place where justice and mercy and hope and despair are manufactured, bought, bartered and sold; a sound-proofed factory where truth is both the final product and the one thing that never leaves the room. VII Network photographer Donald Weber sought to make a very simple photograph, but a very complex portrait. For truth is complicit: a mutual recognition, however fleeting, of power, and surrender to power. This work interrogates the interrogators.

This piece will stay fixed within the confines of the Interrogation Room, describing the people who enter it and leave it, their histories and their drama--young and old, male and female, weak unfortunates and hardened criminals.