She works primarily in cameraless photography,[1] incorporating multiple mediums in her process including sculpture, theatre, drawing, creative nonfiction, and social practice.
She earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California at Los Angeles in 2008;[5] her thesis committee consisted of James Welling, Charles Ray, Lari Pittman, and Mary Kelly, reflecting her interest in experimental photography, space and scale, the politics of imagery, and the phenomenology of visual experience, respectively.
[15] "More like a metaphor than a record,[16] Karapetian's work in photography "generates for viewers enough interference to disrupt and call attention to our era's deeply entrenched response of permitting the constant newsfeed of documentary to slide by us as political ephemera.
Her research on Vsevolod Meyerhold through the Fulbright Program in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2018 emphasized the body as the arbiter of authenticity in revolutionary creative practice.
[18] The recovery project focuses on knowledge production in both visual and verbal forms, including publication of a portfolio by artist Ida Kar.
[25] In her studio work, her writing and speaking, and her public projects, "Karapetian explicitly recodes photography, turning an act of reproduction into one of production.