Biography.

Olia Toporovsky is a conceptual video artist, writer and performer whose work blends abstract visuals, personal narratives, and live performance to explore themes of identity, immigration, and social justice. As a COJECO Blueprint Fellow (2017-2018), she developed The Fifth Paragraph, which has since been performed at multiple venues including The Tank theater, JCC Manhattan, JCC New Haven,.

As part of this ongoing project, she has also led community-based storytelling workshops with immigrants and children of immigrants that were created to empower individuals to share their experiences and build connections through the art of writing and storytelling. She helped the writers to edit and perform the stories live in  a two show series.

Olia has a deep commitment to using creative expression to foster understanding and create meaningful and emotionally charged art, Olia continues to engage diverse audiences through innovative multimedia projects. Olia also uses video projection medium for music performances including Jet Lag festival and a monthly performance at Barbès in Brooklyn as well as other music venues.

Olia’s expression has also led her to other creative endeavors including an interactive installation silent space for a JetLag festival called Prayer Village when the war in Ukraine began.

But what started it all was her writing. Olia has always written poetry and short stories. usually for herself. One of the stories, Goga, which is used now in the Fifth Paragraph performance was also published in the Rumpus and reached a wide audience. This caused a ripple effect that led he to produce this body of work.