- Channel
- Latvijas Televīzija (LTV), Latvian Television
- Program
- Kultūras ziņas (Culture News)
- Reporter
- Alise Zālīte
- Filmed and aired
- September 2, 2026
- Where
- Dana and Matt’s apartment-studio, Rīga, Latvia
- Length
- About 3 minutes
- Occasion
- Art for Meat Tax festival, Creative Factory Veldze, Rīga, September 4–6, 2026
About the segment
Dana Ellyn and her husband, painter Matt Sesow, spent August 31 to September 10, 2026 in Rīga as featured international artists at the Art for Meat Tax festival. On September 2, a Latvian Television crew led by reporter Alise Zālīte came to the apartment where they were living and painting, together with festival curator Katrīna Āboltiņa.
Both artists painted for the camera while the crew filmed, and Dana showed the paintings she had made from researching Latvian food. The three-minute report aired the same day on LTV’s culture news program, Kultūras ziņas.
Watch the segment
Latvijas Televīzija (LTV), Kultūras ziņas. Reporter: Alise Zālīte. Filmed and aired September 2, 2026. English subtitles from latvia.sesow.com; the full transcript is on its transcripts page.
In Dana’s words
“At the same time, I am drawn to history, and since I am from Washington, politics also often becomes the subject of my work.”Dana Ellyn on LTV · on screen as “Dana Elina, māksliniece (ASV)”
“Yes, before arriving in Latvia, we did a lot of research specifically about food.”Dana Ellyn, holding Sprats on Rye and Little Pig (Cūciņa)
Stills from the broadcast
What the segment covered
The report opens on Dana and Matt painting in the apartment, under the title “No politikas līdz pārtikai – laikmetīgās mākslas skatījums” (From politics to food – a contemporary art view). It introduces them as an artist couple from Washington whose styles differ but whose themes overlap.
- Politics and history. Dana: living and working in Washington, politics keeps coming into her work.
- Animals as food. Dana describes taking a deeper interest in how people use animals, which became one of the main themes of her work.
- 31 Days in July. The project Dana and Matt started in 2003: every day in July, a painting from that morning’s news. They kept it up for ten years and revived it in 2025. The segment notes that reactions to political paintings, especially on social media, are very different now than they were then.
- Researching Latvia. It was their first visit. Before arriving they studied Latvian culture, symbols and food, and Dana’s first paintings from that research were about two Latvian staples, grey peas and sprats on rye bread.
- Art for Meat Tax. The segment closes on the festival in the cellars of the Creative Factory Veldze, September 4–6.
More from Rīga
Two days after filming, Dana and Matt showed their work at Art for Meat Tax (Māksla par gaļas nodokli) at Creative Factory Veldze, gave an artist talk, and spoke on the closing panel “Activism Art — Changing the World One Painting at a Time.” The festival’s 2026 theme was gluttony.