Meet the artist

OLGA LUCIA TORRES

Olga has been sick her entire life: starting with a pediatric pituitary adenoma, later developing lupus and five other autoimmune diseases, then suffering a devastating brain injury that left her disabled. As a first-generation Latina, one of the eight founding lawyers of the Bronx defenders, and now a lecturer in the Narrative Medicine program at Columbia University, Olga also identifies as a patient empowerment expert, ambassador for the Lupus Foundation of America, and mother of a miracle daughter. She’s been published in the New York Times, Parents Magazine, and multiple other publications about what it’s like to live in NYC as a person with disabilities and with all her medical conditions. Olga hopes to inspire others to not be defined by their illnesses or limitations.