The following announcement was provided by Project Save:
Project Save Photographic Archive, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit dedicated to preserving the global Armenian experience through photography, announced today its lineup of fall programming, including its first major exhibition in the organization’s gallery and archive space, and two events in its popular “Conversations on Photography” series.
French-Armenian photojournalist and documentary filmmaker Astrig Agopian’s multimedia exhibition Like There’s No Tomorrow will open at Project Save on Nov. 13, 2025 and run through Jan. 17, 2026. The exhibit focuses on the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region Armenians have inhabited for millennia and whose cultural heritage has endured centuries of upheaval. Agopian’s exhibition digs deeply into questions of cultural heritage, identity in diaspora, and wartime displacement. The exhibit is in partnership with ART WORKS Projects, a Chicago- and Hague-based visual arts non-profit.
Like There’s No Tomorrow incorporates photographs and video that document the lives of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh as an Azerbaijan-led war broke out in September 2020 and escalated in 2023 into mass displacement, widely described by human rights organizations as ethnic cleansing. Agopian’s travels to the area garnered interview footage and extensive photographic documentation of war and its effects, following individuals and families as they navigated violence, loss and displacement. The project combines powerful photography, oral histories, and multimedia assets into a living archive that also serves educational and advocacy purposes.
“Agopian invites us to consider how people live in and endure the unimaginable: war, hatred, and revisionist history, and what they cling to or carry when forced to flee,” said Arto Vaun, Executive Director of Project Save. “Her work reflects Project Save’s mission to preserve and share the stories and cultural materials that define the global Armenian experience.”
To deepen the historical narrative, Vaun says the exhibition will include photographs from Project Save’s own collections, presented alongside Agopian’s contemporary work. These archival images document Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh across the 19th and 20th centuries, amplifying the continuum of Armenian presence and resilience in the region.
Like There’s No Tomorrow is supported through ART WORKS Projects’ Emerging Lens Fellowship. Partially funded through the National Endowment for the Arts, Emerging Lens provides unrestricted stipends, professional mentorship, editorial and production support to emerging visual storytellers across the globe working to document human rights issues through lived experiences. More details on the Fellowship are here.
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“Conversations On Photography” series spotlights acclaimed local artists
Project Save’s mission-expansive work includes conversations with prominent voices in photography and the visual arts whose work highlights the importance of documentation and archiving, and the use of visual storytelling in the preservation of cultural heritage. Two “Conversations On Photography” events are planned this fall:
- Thu, Oct 30th, @ 7pm – Conversation with Toni Pepe. As Chair of Photography and Associate Professor of Art at Boston University, Toni Pepe creates prints and three-dimensional assemblages from discarded newspaper images, family snapshots and obsolete photographic equipment. Using those elements, Pepe investigates how photography shapes understandings of time, space and self. In conversation with Arto Vaun, Pepe presents examples from her work Can I Hold You?, exploring the press photographs and newspaper clippings found in the Boston Public Library’s Women and Gender Issues Collection. These photographs, long hidden within a larger Library archive, and the collection’s origins remain unknown. Pepe says working in the archive as an artist “allows me to navigate it not just as a repository of history, but as an unstable, active space of meaning. By emphasizing the photograph as both image and artifact, I hope to prompt viewers to reconsider how we witness, record and remember.”
- Thu, Nov. 6th @ 7pm – Conversation with Claire Beckett. The Boston-based photographer’s large-scale portraits offer views into a post-9/11 America and the impact of the U.S. on global affairs. In conversation with Boston Public Library Lead Curator & Manager of the Arts Kristin Parker, Beckett will show and discuss photographs from her body of work that offer a critical lens on American identity and the impact of global conflict. Recent projects include Simulating Iraq, a stunning look at cultural appropriation within American military training, including maneuvers during which troops enact training practices upon other troops dressed in traditional dress of Middle Eastern citizens. The “cosplay” elements of the maneuvers have a significant impact on American soldiers who are themselves Middle Eastern, Muslim, or practice Islam. Of her work, Beckett says, “Photography is my language for thinking and speaking. I lean into picture-making’s visual and psychological aspects to draw viewers in, encouraging them to think about the issues driving the work.”
“All three of these photographers are telling a larger story about how culture is perceived, collected, and preserved,” Vaun says. “Their work reflects Project Save’s role as a living archive. Each one brings photographs and stories to life; they preserve and illuminate culture and history through their lenses.”
A Legacy of Preservation
Founded in 1975 by Ruth Thomasian, Project Save began as a grassroots effort to document the stories of elderly Armenian immigrants through photographs. Over five decades, the organization amassed more than 100,000 original images from Armenian families and communities around the world, depicting daily life, world events, religious ceremonies, and visits with political leaders, artists, writers and freedom fighters. Vaun became Project Save’s Executive Director in 2021 and led the acquisition of Project Save’s first public home, complete with offices, climate-controlled storage, and gallery space.