[7] In 2004, Olek created "a large tentlike piece made of crocheted strips of cloth, hair, cassette tape and stuffed animals" work for a four-person show.

"[8] Their crocheted sculpture Spill (2005), featured in the Washington Post, included 1,300 skinny white balloons cascading in an "intestinal shape".

[9] They participated in The Waterways, a "socially conscious" art project on a vaporetto water bus during the 2005 Venice Biennale; their work, called Camouflage, "exploring the androgyny of fixed identity, sexuality, and culture".

[10] In September and October of that year, Olek crocheted the windows of a burned-out, abandoned building near their artist residency in Utica, New York.

[16]As an active supporter of women's rights, sexual equality, and freedom of expression, Olek has used the broad appeal of their work to display their solidarity with those stifled by oppressive laws worldwide.

[24] Olek's DUMBO Arts Festival piece was "Painting to Shake Hands" on an "event score" in Yoko Ono's Grapefruit.

[33][34] Olek was the 2010-2011 Workspace artist-in-residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council,[11] during which they created and performed at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

[37] They collaborated with director Gina Vecchione and producer Michelle Price to create a short silent film called YARNANA, through Kickstarter-based fundraising.

[42] Olek changed materials for a joint exhibition with David E. Peterson in New York City;[43] they used thousands of semi-inflated balloons,[44] crocheted like yarn to create a cave-like structure inside the gallery.

The artist noted their love of the ephemeral nature of the medium; the balloons often popped during the creation of the installation, and required immediate repair to prevent it unraveling entirely.

[51] In April 2016, they draped the facade of Virginia MOCA with a giant crocheted New York Times front page, dated 2020 and featuring ecologically themed good news stories.

This motivated Olek to create a short film, "In the Blink of an Eye," where they exploded a crocheted house inside the Verket Museum.

[55] On 3 November 2016, a pink blanket crocheted by Olek and thirty-eight volunteers, featuring Hillary Clinton's face and the hashtag #ImWithHer in black and white, was nailed to a billboard in New Jersey.