Machine transcription (Whisper large-v3), corrected and translated by hand where Latvian is spoken. Please check against the recording before quoting.
Watch the captioned video. [LV→EN] marks lines translated from Latvian.
RADIO NABA — 4 September 2026 — English captions (translated where Latvian) Yellow in the video = translated from Latvian. White = spoken in English. [00:06] — translated from Latvian — [LV→EN] Well — let's call today's song the free version too. [LV→EN] Ministry, after thirty-odd years… [LV→EN] a little burned out, maybe. [LV→EN] But we'll leave their problems to them. [LV→EN] We have guests in the studio. Labrīt — good morning! [LV→EN] Good morning! [LV→EN] So — who has come to see us? [LV→EN] Hi, I'm Katrīna. [LV→EN] I represent the festival Art for Meat Tax. [LV→EN] There are three of us organizing it: Sandris Mūriņš, Roberta, [LV→EN] and me. [LV→EN] This year we're holding the second Art for Meat Tax festival — [LV→EN] from this evening through Sunday, [LV→EN] at the creative factory Veldze. [LV→EN] We have a huge, wonderful, beautiful exhibition in the Veldze [LV→EN] cellars, which are a very historic, [LV→EN] interesting place in themselves — [LV→EN] and a little spooky. [LV→EN] If you come, wear good shoes — [LV→EN] it's pretty damp down there this time of year. [LV→EN] The exhibition shows work by 27 artists from seven countries, [LV→EN] including Poland, Canada and New Zealand. [LV→EN] I won't name them all or I'll take up the whole broadcast. [LV→EN] There'll also be performances and lectures. [LV→EN] We're part of the White Night programme too, [LV→EN] so you can find us in the White Night listings, [LV→EN] or on Instagram: Gaļas nodoklis. [LV→EN] And this year's special guest artists, [LV→EN] who came all the way from Washington just for our festival, [LV→EN] are Dana Ellyn and Matt Sesow — [LV→EN] here in the studio with me today. [LV→EN] Sorry for doing your job — [LV→EN] I just wanted to introduce them. [LV→EN] Thanks — less work for me! [LV→EN] Let's talk with our guests. [LV→EN] As it happens, in Washington most people don't speak Latvian, [LV→EN] so the interview will be in English, [LV→EN] and afterwards we'll try a short summary in Latvian. [02:05] — in English — So, the introductions have been made. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Matt Sesow, from Washington, D.C., and with me is… Dana Ellyn, also from Washington, D.C. Amazing. Washington State is like the furthest away from Latvia as it can get, right? Yes. No — actually, Washington, D.C. Oh, no. Yeah, Washington. No, but that is a common confusion people have. Yeah, so we're where the White House is. Yeah. You're from where the White House is. Yeah, yeah. Also D.C. It's like Latvia, Lithuania type of thing. Which one is which? Yeah. The other Washington has Seattle. I know. Yeah. Washington State. Yeah. So we live and paint downtown in Washington, D.C., about four blocks from the White House. Wow. — Yeah. So when we paint, we sell our work online to people all over the world, when we're lucky. And, you know, people buy our work. And one of the cool things we do when we ship paintings out to the people who buy our work: we walk in front of the White House to get to the post office. So it is actually on the way to send our work out. Most of the people on this planet can't say that they just stroll past the White House Because they have to get to the post office. Yeah, and one thing — well, I'm speaking for Dana here — But one of the things she really enjoys about going to the post office in the morning Is because there's always a lot of bomb-sniffing dogs out in front of the White House And they always like to come up and see what's in our packages. Yeah, you're not supposed to engage with them, but I can't help it. So I always give them that googly eyes. I look at them like, hello, it's a good doggy. Why do they look so friendly? I think they're looking at me like I'm a nice snack. Would you consider using something in the paint to attract the dog? I've thought about putting like hot dogs in my pockets. Okay. Yeah. Do you have questions for them, maybe? Yes. Like, what kind of works can we see at this event? And yeah, what's the— —inspiration? Surely not just the hot dogs and dogs. — Although, you know, I don't think in this show I have a painting that does exactly that. But I'm sure I've painted those two things in one painting in the past. So my work — I've done a lot of paintings about animals and food culture for a lot of years. So I made a specific body of work for this show, focusing on— not specifically the meat tax, because that's not a subject for me to weigh in on as an American coming to Latvia. But I had plenty of background painting animals, and how we see them, and how we treat animals differently depending on which animal it is. So, the whole idea of speciesism. Say, putting a girl hugging a dog next to a girl hugging a pig and asking: what's the difference here? Why do we love one and eat the other? That's kind of an underlying theme in a lot of my work. And for me — my work's fairly primitive. Sometimes people say, “Oh, my kid could do that.” So I do things like — I paint dogs. You'll see some of my dogs in this exhibit. And what I also did was look at some of the Latvian animal culture, and try to find some imagery here before I even got here, that I could paint in anticipation of what I was going to see. So I did the Bremen Town Musicians, from the statue — the rooster, the cat, the dog and the donkey. And then I also did one of grey peas — we bought the bag, but we haven't made them yet— —because we don't have grey peas in Washington, so we'll be doing those. So it's just a guy eating a bunch of grey peas. And then I did some more American- type things, about our culture of capitalism in America, and factory farming. So there's a Mr. Monopoly guy with a whole bunch of animals around him. I tried to keep it pretty fun and pretty lighthearted. A lot of really bright colours. I also included a few quotes, like from Kafka. So there's this picture of Kafka I painted, with his quote about being able to look fish in the eye, now that he won't be eating them. So nothing too hardcore with my stuff — even though I like to listen to hardcore. So I really liked your music coming into the intro there. — Thank you. Along those lines — Matt talking about the grey peas. In the research before we came — we've travelled together and shown in other countries, And I always like to look at their food culture. So yeah, the grey peas were the first thing that came about, and then sprats on rye — and hearing that dill is in everything. So these are things I'll carry forward. So when we did a show in Barcelona, for example I did a series of paintings similar to what I did here, but it was a little pig — a jamón — standing on tapas, so using the animal instead of the pieces of meat, and putting it into the food, depending on which country we're in. I had something to say about food culture in China when we went there, too. There's always something to say. Definitely. The artwork, you make it at home, right? And then you, how do you get it to the country that you're then visiting? Do you carry it in your suitcase or do you ship it? You cross the White House and you go to the post office and ship it? Pretty much. So, yeah, we paint and live in the same spot. So — I'm going to turn 60 in a couple of days, and I'll be, I think, up in the sky. Well, thank you. I was saying it's because of the 30-plus years of vegetarianism. But anyway — so we paint and live in the same spot. It's, I don't know what it would be in metres, but 800 square feet of living space. I sleep in a bunk bed. So we both live, you know, we live and paint together. Anyway, we make the work there, and we bring it on the plane. In the past, when we've done a show, we'd paint in the country before we hung the show. But this time we brought everything finished that we were hanging, put it in bags, and we just walked them in. But one thing we're going to do while we're here: we brought a lot of art supplies — paper, paint. We even went and bought paint a couple of days ago here in the city — and we'll be painting while we're here. So we're going to take in a lot of what we see, the culture, and paint our experience while we're here, because we're here for about another week. — Oh yeah, that's quite some time. Enough to get over the jet lag. — Yes. And the things you plan to paint — maybe later this afternoon — will you exhibit them too, or will they travel on with you? — So, what we've done — because we have websites, and like I said, we sell most of our work online — we've set up a way to post work to our websites from here. So people back home are watching — and not just back home, but other states and other countries. So we'll make them available immediately. I think I'm going to post some stuff later tonight. We'll walk around, take pictures — I might even paint something from this interview. Maybe a version of you guys, with your logo in the back. — Yeah! — If you see my work, you'll see it's not always the most realistic. — The joke when we compare our work: Matt captures the person, but then writes their name, with an arrow pointing — “this is John.” And then I can capture them exactly. We have some work we do together — we call it DEFILED. Typically Matt will start it and capture the essence of the person, and then I come in on top and firm up the details. And it always amazes me that even though at a glance one of Matt's paintings looks full-on loose and reckless — well, slightly reckless — when I work on top of it, he's got everything in exactly the right place for me to firm it up and make it look exactly like that person. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I can make it easy for you guys. So — Mārtiņš. For his name day — because Mārtiņš is a traditional Latvian name — in Latvian culture you would, I do apologise, kill a black rooster as an offering, right? And my name is Irbe, which is a bird name — partridge. So you've got a rooster and a partridge, and we expect… So I'll tell you what: I'll do that, probably today or tomorrow. And if you give me your email, I'll email you. Let me know if you like it or not. And if not, I'll just give it to you. Fantastic. Yeah. Sold. Did I hear it right? If we don't like it, you'll give it to us? If you don't like it, I will give it to you as well. It's a threat! It'll still be okay — you can use it as a joke or something. Don't threaten us with a good time. Okay. But then, yeah, I might turn to you now in Latvian, to wrap it up a little. [11:42] — translated from Latvian — [LV→EN] How do you find these artists — [LV→EN] how do you choose them and build the programme? [LV→EN] Do you go to biennials and look around, [LV→EN] or is there a public open call? [LV→EN] Because you have seven artists in all this— [LV→EN] How do you put them together? Twenty-seven. [LV→EN] Twenty-seven, yes. [LV→EN] How do you put them together? [LV→EN] Well, we run with no budget at all — [LV→EN] it's pure activism, that's what drives us. [LV→EN] People often hear “Art for Meat Tax” [LV→EN] and it sounds scary straight away: they're going to take our [LV→EN] meat away? But really, the art here is more a metaphor for [LV→EN] overconsumption — [LV→EN] for the horror of it. [LV→EN] This year's special theme is gluttony — [LV→EN] overconsumption. [LV→EN] People buy, use, throw away so much food… [LV→EN] everything, everything. [LV→EN] So, to answer: we put out open calls for artists, [LV→EN] both Latvian and foreign— [LV→EN] —in groups. The response this year was huge. [LV→EN] We couldn't even accept everyone, [LV→EN] because some didn't quite fit the concept— [LV→EN] —since the festival's core themes are health, [LV→EN] empathy and the environment. [LV→EN] So there were artists who just didn't fit. [LV→EN] As for this year's special theme, gluttony — [LV→EN] honestly, we ended up with a bit too little art about it, [LV→EN] because most of the artists— [LV→EN] —the activist artists — [LV→EN] are like Dana: most often the empathetic ones, [LV→EN] who lean toward the animal side. [LV→EN] So when people ask why the show is so full of animals — [LV→EN] well, what is meat, after all? [LV→EN] That's how it turns out. [LV→EN] There were very many applications, [LV→EN] and some artists we approached ourselves — [LV→EN] Dana among them. [LV→EN] We knew of them. [LV→EN] They're very modest — [LV→EN] they tell their story very modestly — but in truth— [LV→EN] —they are very well-known artists. [LV→EN] It's a huge honour for us. [LV→EN] Matt says he paints “primitively” — [LV→EN] but he paints in an expressionist way, [LV→EN] a bit in the style of Basquiat— [LV→EN] —so no need to be so modest. [LV→EN] And Dana paints realistically and expressively. [LV→EN] So it's all very vivid. [LV→EN] And yes, they're very well known. [LV→EN] We reached out hoping they might at least send us something [LV→EN] we could print. [LV→EN] And she said: “This subject feels so important to me — [LV→EN] we're coming.” [LV→EN] I sat there for a while gripping the table, [LV→EN] then wrote back: “Do you understand we're a no-budget event?” — [LV→EN] “Yes, we understand. We're coming.” [LV→EN] It was simply fantastic. [LV→EN] We also reached out to Angela Singer, who is very, very famous — [LV→EN] I think one of the most controversial and famous [LV→EN] animal-rights artists in the world, if I can put it that way, [LV→EN] because she works with taxidermy. [LV→EN] She sent us extremely high-quality prints of her taxidermy [LV→EN] works all the way from New Zealand. [LV→EN] There were a few more artists we approached. [LV→EN] And of course I really want to mention our wonderful, [LV→EN] most famous Latvian activist artist, Katrīna Tračuma— [LV→EN] —who curated the exhibition for the first festival last year. [LV→EN] This year I took it over, because she had her biggest [LV→EN] retrospective ever — [LV→EN] the largest exhibition devoted to animal rights ever held in [LV→EN] the Baltics. [LV→EN] I tried to help her with it too, but then we left her in [LV→EN] peace, and I took over running the whole process, [LV→EN] with a lot of help from Roberta, and together we searched for [LV→EN] artists. I'm probably talking too fast! [LV→EN] But I really feel the team we've gathered is wonderful — [LV→EN] both the people who applied and the ones we invited. [LV→EN] The response this year was truly unexpected — [LV→EN] so thank you to Veldze, whose cellars have endless room. [LV→EN] Superb. So, to recap the main facts: you open today. [LV→EN] Today at six the festival opens with a lecture by Jānis [LV→EN] Brizga on the ecological footprint of our diets. [LV→EN] If you're interested, come and listen. [LV→EN] At seven there's a small opening gathering and the first [LV→EN] guided tour. [LV→EN] Because I should add: since it's in the cellars, [LV→EN] we can't let people wander around as they please, [LV→EN] like in a gallery. [LV→EN] So every 15–20 minutes, once enough people gather, [LV→EN] someone guides them and explains what's going on — [LV→EN] which matters, because it's a conceptual show. [LV→EN] Then tonight at eight there's the first performance, [LV→EN] and at nine a grunge-hardcore band, Dzemdes Skaudība, [LV→EN] who played Depo two nights ago. [LV→EN] They formed the band especially for the festival — [LV→EN] and they were really, really good. [LV→EN] Tomorrow the exhibition opens at 12, [LV→EN] and since it's White Night— [LV→EN] —we're open until half past midnight. [LV→EN] At two in the afternoon Matt and Dana give an artist talk, [LV→EN] then there are more lectures, and from six there are [LV→EN] performances in the cellar all evening. [LV→EN] Really interesting ones — [LV→EN] dance performances and experiential performances. [LV→EN] The programme is very, very full, because it's White Night. [LV→EN] On Sunday we're open from 11 to 7. [LV→EN] The exhibition is on view the whole time, [LV→EN] with only a couple of events during the day — [LV→EN] but the closing one, a very interesting one, is Dana, [LV→EN] Matt and Katrīna Tračuma in a panel on how activist art [LV→EN] changes the world, moderated by Sandris Ādminis— [LV→EN] —which we're really happy about, because he's a huge [LV→EN] supporter of ours. Hi, Sandris! [LV→EN] And — performances aside — [LV→EN] can someone buy the artworks? [LV→EN] Does the money go on to NGOs or somewhere? [LV→EN] Or can I, as an ordinary person, walk in and think “I want [LV→EN] this one”? Is there any way to support you? [LV→EN] So — Matt has brought 21 paintings and Dana— [LV→EN] sorry, I'm mixing them up — [LV→EN] Matt has 14 paintings and Dana has 21. [LV→EN] People can buy all of them, and the money goes entirely to [LV→EN] the artists, since they flew in from America. [LV→EN] That goes without saying. [LV→EN] To support us, you'll be able to buy the prints we made [LV→EN] ourselves, since many artists sent their work that way. [LV→EN] As for the other artists' paintings — [LV→EN] well, we're not, how to put it, capitalists by nature. [LV→EN] We take no commission from the artists. [LV→EN] You can deal with them directly, or always contact me if [LV→EN] something catches your eye. [LV→EN] And I think we'll put out a donation box for anyone who [LV→EN] really wants to support us. [LV→EN] A couple of friends donated money for the basics, [LV→EN] like printing. [LV→EN] So once more: the guest artists' work is for sale. [LV→EN] Thank you, thank you, thank you! [19:52] — in English — Let's wrap this up. She had to do her specific job, which she did great, so we say a big thank you. We have to move on with the next part. — Mārtiņš, yeah. Thank you for coming. — Yes. — While we say our goodbyes — can I make a request? Can I request a song? — That'll be really complicated… only if you have— I've thought of the exact same thing! Oh — because we pre-program all of this. Okay. Maybe we'll call in later. Yeah, we'll call in later. That you can try, definitely. I hope you'll like my choice. It's going to be The Smiths. Oh, very good. I was going to request Fugazi — “Waiting Room.” They're from Washington, D.C. Well, since it's on theme, I chose “Meat Is Murder.” Very good, very good. I love it. Really quick, too — from “Every Day Is Like Sunday.” If you've ever seen the video for that, the girl is wearing a shirt that says “I don't eat my friends.” And in the show, one of the paintings I did is of that T-shirt. So you picked the perfect song. Perfect — The Smiths. Thank you. Thank you.
Watch the subtitled video. Reporter: Alise Zalite.
[00:00] Dana Ellyn and Matt Sesow are an artist couple from Washington. [00:03] Although their artistic styles differ, they are united by a set of themes that [00:07] interest both artists and which, in their opinion, art should address. [00:12] From its very beginnings and even today, art has, to a certain extent, [00:16] touched upon the theme of disability. [00:18] It is also connected to my personal experience, because at the age of 8 [00:21] I lost my arm. [00:22] Over time, I have developed my own unique style and iconography. [00:27] At the same time, I am drawn to history, and since I am from Washington, [00:32] politics also often becomes the subject of my work. [00:35] When I began to take a deeper interest in the topic related to the use of animals [00:39] for food and people's habit of eating animals, it became one of [00:44] the main themes in my art. [00:46] Both Dana and Matt have been active in the art world for more than 20 years. [00:49] Both have consistently addressed politics in their works and exhibitions. [00:54] The artists have observed that over the years what has changed the most is [00:57] society's attitude towards these very themes. [01:00] In 2003, we started a joint project where every morning in July [01:05] we would choose an event from a Washington newspaper and turn it into a painting. [01:09] Back then, we did it very freely. [01:11] turned it into a painting. [01:12] Back then we did it very freely. [01:14] Without much reaction to it at the time, we carried this project on [01:17] for ten years and even renewed it last year, but people's reaction was [01:22] completely different. [01:23] On social media, questions appeared, for example, what do you mean by that, and [01:27] concerns about certain paintings? [01:33] even during the war we try to be very cautious with the information we receive and [01:37] the various opinions. [01:38] A similar situation also exists in America regarding Donald Trump. [01:41] Social media creates a huge flow of information. [01:46] They have traveled, but this is their first time visiting Latvia. [01:49] At the festival, regarding the meat tax art, they will present works [01:52] created earlier, but during the festival, the artists will also create new works, [01:57] inspired by their experience in Latvia, with the intention of later [02:01] creating an exhibition dedicated to Latvia. [02:04] We knew we were going to Latvia, so we researched its culture [02:07] and symbols, looking for inspiration for our paintings. [02:10] We also learned about this animal statue, which is said to be [02:12] popular among tourists. [02:14] Another painting is about gray peas, a dish that is not common in America. [02:19] Yes, before arriving in Latvia, we did a lot of research specifically about food. [02:23] These were the first two paintings I created about two dishes I [02:26] found in my research: gray peas and sprats on rye bread. [02:33] This is the blue cow. [02:34] I read that in Latvia this breed had almost disappeared, but later made a comeback. [02:39] Interestingly, this work had already been painted in 2010. [02:42] That year, without knowing anything about Latvia. [02:44] This is a story about my childhood in the American Midwest, [02:47] where I was surrounded by agriculture. [02:49] Similar to Latvia, The festival Art for Meat Tax [02:52] will take place in the cellars of the Creative Factory Veldze, from 4 to 6 [02:57] September. [02:58] Alise Zālīte, Latvian Television.
Sunday 6 September 2026, 17:00, Veldze courtyard. In English. Moderator: Sandris Ādminis. Panel: Dana Ellyn, Matt Sesow, Katrīna Tračuma. Speaker turns are not labelled. Listen (mp3, 51 min).
[00:00:03] Thank you all for coming. Good afternoon. I'm glad to see so many faces here and of course I'm super excited about our guests today. and before I introduce all of you of course huge thanks to the organizers of the festival Sandris and Katrīna and Roberta and Olga and others it's it's been amazing and super strong experience for me and I guess for for most of us who experienced it my name is Sandris I'm an animal rights activist for years this is my project and also this conversation will sooner or later be a part of the radio program that I'm creating and maybe we will distribute it in some other ways maybe in a written form who knows and yeah and there will probably be a video recording yeah this time the festival art for the meat tax is focused on gluttony, on overconsumption, inviting us to rethink our relationships with animals as they have developed in the 21st century in the super relatively rich countries where we can afford to consume way more than we really need to and it has huge consequences on nature, on animals and on on our own health. You as artists have chosen at least partly to focus your creative intentions to these issues. At first, I'll introduce you. And feel free to correct me if I made some mistakes. [00:02:02] Dana Ellyn, Dana or Dana? Dana, okay. Both of you are from USA, from Washington DC, which is like the closest part of US to Europe. East coast. Yes. And you're a painter who's a kind of provocative approach and works are exploring mostly attitude between humans and animals regarding food. At least that's my first impression, but also you created works about political issues, feminist issues, religious, right? Yeah, so the... Oh, wait. Perhaps we take a tiny break for these loud noises. Yeah, so I have done a lot of work about animal issues. It's obviously what brought me here and what made you familiar with my work over the years. It's very heartening to discover that you already knew of my work prior to this, so it's wonderful to meet you. Yeah, and so I jokingly say, but it's true, I paint about all the things you're not supposed to discuss at the dinner table. vegetarianism, veganism, religion, politics. I'm very used to discussing difficult topics, but I discuss them in paint. It's very unusual for me to have to speak out loud about things. So this, forgive me if I'm awkward or stumbling or ramble on, I work through my ideas by painting. So I spend hours and hours thinking about things and reading things and sketching and planning and ruminating and and it might take me sometimes longer to come up with and formulate a painting than it does to do the painting but then again I also can spend 8, 10, 12, 20 hours on a painting and other times it takes an hour to do a painting so it's it's all over the place but yeah so the the animal rights and viewing animals through a lens of humanizing them to simplify it making [00:04:03] people think of them as living, thinking, breathing, feeling creatures is really the top priority of the paintings I do when I deal with animal issues. And yeah, by the way, all of the artist's works you can find downstairs. Hopefully there will be another chance or no, this was the last tour. Okay. There's one more tonight. All right. Yeah. And Matt, Matt Sesow, you are both life partners, I guess for at least a long while. You're a self-taught expressionist, a painter whose role and really energetic work transforms your own personal experience and political kind of unease into, I would say, pretty distinctive language of forms and colors and yeah it's like in your face yeah okay let's try or we need to move a bit closer to the audience but yeah okay now we can see you so that's so is it true yes yes I'm Matt Sesow from Washington DC the the very happy and proud husband of Dana Ellyn, the artist. Yeah, I started painting, I was working as a full-time programmer at IBM in Washington, DC. I had no idea I wanted to paint or could paint. It just kind of came to me when I was 28 years old as a sort of challenge because I was sitting, I was like hanging out at a group house [00:06:00] with a bunch of cool kids. And all the cool kids were like in a band and stuff. And they were all art students. And I went to school to become a computer scientist. And I was doing okay with that. But they said, oh, do you know how to paint? And I lied. And I just said, oh, yeah, sure, I can paint. Because I wanted to be cool. Because I was kind of a nerd. I still am. And so I just started to paint a lot that night. And pretty much on day one, I painted about my disability. See, I have one hand. And it happened when I was eight years old, I was hit by an airplane. And so I had a lot of like experiences with operations and pain and all that sort of fun stuff as a kid. And I think because of that and also because of my own youth, we did a lot of like hunting and fishing and ate a lot of meat. that as I started to understand through my painting, kind of what I was trying to express, which was my disability, how I felt about my pain and my own experiences, eventually that light clicked in my head that like, well, why am I hurting things in order for me to eat when I can just live off of beans, get my proteins other ways. And it's actually much more delicious to me now because also Dan is such an amazing cook. I'm very very spoiled and um I do the dishes so anyways that's that's kind of what brought me to a lot of my animal advocacy work um and I do uh I guess I've been vegetarian for like I don't know a while since like the the early 90s or late late 90s yeah one thing to follow up because Matt said that yesterday when we were talking to people so my background as a kid I was always in trouble at the dinner table. I didn't know the term vegetarian or certainly not vegan growing up in the 70s, or I lived at least. It wasn't anything anyone knew about or talked about. I was just in [00:08:04] trouble constantly for not wanting to eat my meat. I'd chop it up into little tiny bits and hide it in my rice or find ways not to eat. And if I was eating food that was still on the bone or you saw a tendon, that was game over for me. So I realized I was kind of at heart, always vegetarian-minded growing up, not really knowing what it all meant. especially eating spare ribs. So like anything with the ribs is meat on a bone and you're chewing on someone's ribs. It clicked for me early. And even to the level of, I remember going out to my swimming pool and rescuing frogs and bugs that were floating on top and skimming them off. And if they had already died, I'd bury them in the backyard and take out a little prayer book. I didn't grow up with any religion, but we had some books around and I was like, is this prayers? Okay. And I would Thank you. say a little prayer over like the dead insects so this was me from a very early age thank you and uh katrina you are i would say like the the latvian star artivist thank you but also thank you for the actual insights uh because like listening to you talk about your childhood experiences how you came to creating art and why this topic specifically it all makes sense when you look at visually downstairs what's on the canvases it just clicks so I think it's it's really good insight to hear the personal why and it all just like visually then relates so thank you for the insight yeah so get ready you will have to share your own story as well but at first I need to say that Katrīna at least for me definitely is the Latvia's most impressive animal rights like ethics focused artists and just as a Dana's your work also is focusing not not just to animal issues but also feminist issues environmental all kinds of like the strange meant between society and our environment and all the others so-called right and and you as an interdisciplinary [00:10:06] artist you work not just with painting but also with sculpture lately with performance we will come to that later to normal milk because wow but yeah what what's what's your uh background story yes well thank you so much for the praise i try like i'm just trying i'm still a baby artist because like in the art world i feel like um there was somebody great who said this like 10 years that you're doing your craft is like being a toddler essentially equivalent so I still have a long way to go uh but yeah about like 12 13 years of professional art making uh in my childhood as well very similar experience of uh all the way back to kindergarten me and my best friend we realized like chickens pigs cows they all have you know names not just body parts and dishes like titles for dishes so early on as well we decided uh hey we're gonna be like 12 soon and then people adults parents will not be able to control us as much so we're going to become vegetarian when we're 12 on our and this was in kindergarten so we waited for like six years yeah and then I came back to Latvia at that point I was already moving around a lot and I asked my friend like did you do it are you vegetarian and she was like no Katrīna there's no point like animals are always going to be consumed and doesn't matter and then we didn't talk for a very long time but then I returned back to live in Latvia now we're friends again and she also does arts so I completely feel you're also very weird when you're already a child and I feel like maybe children uh even have this connection better they understand because children um they don't have this natural there is no natural instinct to kill when you put a child with a chicken or a pig or a kitten it's it's actually bizarre if they start being violent towards them because then [00:12:02] you take them to a psychiatrist and you're like you know my child is burning pigeons in the yard or something like that's weird like people except like insects some some kids like to tear off the legs of them but maybe that's because it's so hard to identify with them they're like more alien they're not mammals or birds yes so yeah I had the connection early on as well from my childhood that definitely this is not normal, I don't think, but everybody else is doing it. And then there's this pressure of like, why aren't you doing it? Thankfully, my mother was very supportive and is very supportive. Basically, anything that goes right in my life is thanks to my parents. So that's a very big influence as well. I think so many people struggle, you know, when you're on family, like at the dinner table, when you're the weird one and you're like, that is, you have to have like stamina, guts to go against that. You would probably agree that never goes away. If you're at dinner parties and in the U.S., like Thanksgiving, every year Thanksgiving is just like, oh, here we go. You know, Dana's coming. I can only imagine about Thanksgiving. We have to make the special stuffing for Dana and Matt. You know, I'm the troubled one. yeah it's like yeah the special this is the special yes yes we all know that very well but um yeah in terms of art then it was kind of something that uh quite literally saved my life I was uh very young when I started my first university degree I was 17 and at that point I don't know how people are supposed to know what they want to do with their life so I went through several degrees that I didn't finish before I landed on a bachelor's of arts and I was like okay this is what I can do this is what I want to do and then it was also sort of a task in college where I had to decide what would I make my art about and obviously there's so many topics and everybody approaches so different some have a more personal some are more like documentary [00:14:05] there's so many variations alleys that you can go into but for me the activism side of it it was like I didn't feel brave enough or capable enough to, I don't know, tie myself to a tree or camp out or steal animals from slaughterhouses, you know, but I can't paint. So I decided that I'm going to use the skill that I have and that I'm constantly evolving to somehow put in my help into creating a better world and future for everyone, every species, every gender, every everyone I would suggest we continue by talking about the art you created specifically for Latvia and Riga and also probably some artwork that is still in the making and later we move towards your work with our normal milk so I think like this is kind of tied to this specific event so I'm not gonna recall all the topics because I'm amazed and I would like more details you kind of represented in your latest paintings the Latvian traditional dishes. So the first thing I did after being invited to participate in the festival by Robby and Katrīna was I you know knowing the subject matter obviously of why we're here and what we're discussing I went right to what are the most traditional Latvian foods I figured that was my best inroads and the first dishes I came across were gray peas, of course, with pork. So I did a piece of, and we've never heard or seen gray peas, not a common food at home. We have a bag in our suitcase already, ready to come home with us. I'll figure out how to prepare them well. So yeah, the first page was a little cute piggy, of course, standing on top of a bowl of gray peas and then sprats on rye. Those were great for painting, just that gold shiny. So things I hadn't, I had never painted [00:16:02] Spratz on rye before. So I did three or four, four specific like food Latvian dishes were the first four things I did. And then went back to say, I started painting very focused on the vegetarian, vegan, animal rights themes in around 2010, 2013. It was when I went from vegetarian to vegan that I really went after it. Like that's when I hit that point that as Katrīna says yesterday, and the talk we were giving that every vegan's gone through that, not militant stage, but that when you're just, oh my gosh, you're learning it all. It's so brutal. And you can't believe you've never known this before about the dairy industry. We could call it in a polite way, like the reactive phase. Yeah, I was reactive. Yes, I was very reactive. And I was sort of the equivalent of screaming from the rooftops and shaking people with my paintings. Just they were, they were bloody. They were aggressive. My most infamous one was called Baby Back Ribs, and it was a little baby sitting on a kitchen table on a plate, turned backwards with its back open so you could see its ribs, like literal baby's back ribs. It was a lot. And on the wall behind the baby were pictures of pigs, like it was a pig family that was serving a baby for dinner. So that's where I started. And then I learned over time what you mentioned about activism, and I'm not going to tie myself to a tree. I'm not a public speaker. I'm not someone I'm described as a vegan activist. I am in my way through paint because I'm not tying myself to, I don't go to protests and actively yell about anything. And I'm very careful about where my art is used as well. So I did a lot of looking into the work that you guys have done. and what the festival was about, and it sat perfectly with me. It was the right approach for me. I've had to deny some organizations the use of my art when I find out that they're going to go out and throw blood on a restaurant. Like, that's not the type of way I want to approach this. So with my art, I learned to be kinder and gentler [00:18:01] and approach it in a way that everyone could approach it and just sort of come up to it more slowly and take it in, And then maybe after you're spending a minute with the painting, you go, oh, like instead of it hitting you immediately. So that was a skill I had to learn over time. But I would say still for people who are more sensitive, seeing this piglet with this needle going through the feet. Yeah, so I did go back to my roots of a little aggression. So I'll wrap it up by saying, so when I started doing these paintings, I was doing nothing but this subject for a couple of years. Not nothing. I still dabbled with politics and whatnot. But I sort of backed up. I hadn't said everything I needed to say, but I had said my piece and journeyed over to painting about other stuff for the past 10 years or so. But this opportunity to start painting on this again, realized how much more I had to say and how much I loved painting these works that I have downstairs. I painted 25 or so that I brought with me. Some wouldn't fit in the suitcase. One of my favorite ones is still back at home in Washington, D.C. because it wouldn't fit in the suitcase. So what I have here is definitely representative and everything's on my website. We can talk more about that at the end before I go into self-promotion mode. So Matt, I think now it's your turn. Also, you have several paintings, including with the Latvian text, at least one of them with the hunter. Oh, yes. Yes. So that was actually a painting that I painted here a couple of days ago. So one of the things that Dan and I like to do when we travel is we bring art supplies with us. so we've been painting in our um we'll call it a hotel studio apartment um for the last four days since we've been here um and we've been we've been trying to push as much travel around the city as we can to try to get inspiration as well which has been really really great so we did a lot today as well for future paintings so yeah that painting was just it says hunter on it or hunters i think or maybe hunter because I'm not sure of the language. [00:20:02] But it's of a dog and a guy who are hunting. And I got that by when we first got here, we like to buy groceries, of course, when we first arrived in the country. And we were in the cheese section. And I think that's from a cheese label here in Latvia of a guy and his dog. And so we go around like the grocery store, take pictures of labels and all the words and things. So I've been painting from some of that. and then of course the musicians of Bremen because I and and um so we saw that um but anyways yeah so before we came to Latvia I did some research on the internet found the musicians so I did a representation of that the blue cow oh yes yeah so that's a it's a sculpture um in the old city that we call it uh and I'm not sure the name of the church but yeah but it's okay okay but it's a really really cool statue and apparently you you rub it for good luck because like the nose of all the animals is kind of uh rubbed on it so it's a it's a donkey with a dog on its back and on its back is on the dog's back as a cat and on the cat's back is a rooster or chicken um so anyways yeah so i painted that it's just a wonderful visual for my style of art because I put the lips and the teeth which is something I always do um I also did a rendition of the blue cow which is quite um famous um I guess it was an animal that almost went extinct here and then now is is being is coming for me morally that's that's a I can't say that's a it's a breed created by by people it's not like a natural species So for that reason, I have mixed feelings about having the breed preserved for human enjoyment. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So I'll take that angle some more because I will be probably painting it again while we're here. [00:22:05] And also, you know, just the idea of gluttony. I did one with like a bar scene where people are just getting too drunk and stuff of that kind of gluttony. And then I also do paintings with famous quotes from writers like Kafka is down there. I want his quotes about not eating fish anymore because he looked them in the eye and would not be eating them anymore. So anyways, yeah, just gosh, I'm kind of losing what else I brought. So we'll pass it on. And yeah, by the way, if you want to see more of those paintings made specifically in Latvia or for Latvia, follow them on social media, on Facebook, Instagram. You are constantly posting your latest pictures there. Yes. Yeah, we've actually sold a few already. So we've only been here, what, like I said, four days, and there are people back home who have already bought a few of the ones that we've been posting, that we've been doing here. And some of them are still available, as far as I know. so let's move to katrina now yesterday at least for me it was totally the the most powerful experience your performance together with with your team a normal milk which was the fourth episode of it the first was exactly a year ago and every time they are quite different and also your uh drawings downstairs like normally you have paintings but this time it's tiny drawings which are kind of accompanying the performance like yeah please elaborate on the performance as such and also what's the role of these tiny drawings down there yes so there's definitely some similarities as well with the you mentioning the blue cow breed and in the drawings because I do usually paint and I paint I like really vivid bright strong colors I have a lot of reasoning [00:24:02] behind that I like researching color theories I like to use the weapons of mass destruction let's say capitalism against itself in art so for example in commercial use and for psychological effects when we see advertisements they're always very bright garish they steal your attention they basically grab you. So that's also the kind of palette that I'm constantly striving for to achieve in my work. And as well, I would like to picture all the animals alive. So I don't often paint or draw the things like, for example, the works that are in this exhibition, they're very uncomfortable for me. I don't like them. They're like, it's, I did it because of the prompt for the exhibition, but it's not something that like, I would say is something that I really enjoyed making or I'm proud of. The process of painting itself, when you have such a vivid imagination, like us, we're not the people who need to be preached about, about the horrors of what happens at a standard dinner table. So to be then going into my studio and spending eight hour days painting flesh that's like you know torn apart or that's not what I do so basically as the drawings are very unusual in that aspect um they're just simple pencil drawings and but the color as well I was like I need to have color I can't have I can't do this black and white situation that's just not me so I was also going back to the blue cow because I was like thinking okay let's do a color that's not like a neutral um and that's how I ended up with using the specific pigment dive from this watercolor palette this from UK so yes they're kind of tying in with our performance that happened last night and the performance is another aspect of all the things that I do but I like to say the performance art is more like a hobby of mine I'm very very grateful that a year [00:26:01] ago Roberta had this insane idea of just like you know normal milk and we could do this we could talk about how it's like not normal and how like she was you know it was just like an idea there she is it was just an idea and now to look back a year a year later four installments and we've performed in Boulderia which is a club in Riga we've performed just at the end beginning of the Tamara and Tartu, which was a new audience as well. And honestly, last night's, I think, experience was probably, you know, such a high point in this whole journey for us. And myself and Roberta and Daria and Udis and Janis and Artyoms, there's lots of people behind that are helping us through this. And possibly more people will join us, I hope, in the future because we have bigger plans. We want to really make an impact. We want to expand. It is very taxing on the body. It is very truthful and honest, I would say. Like we cry and experience pain that is real and it is rewarding in that sense. But if you do ever have an opportunity to see normal milk live, I highly recommend because it will never be the same. it will always be different and we put our hearts and souls and bodies and arthritic knees into it so can you share the story behind the title uh so roberta uh initially when she came up with the idea is to highlight how when you're buying uh coffee or cappuccino whatever and nowadays everybody's very woke and very aware and asking what kind of milk you want and uh sometimes most of the time actually have to pay extra for the oat milk or the soy milk and then when you go to a coffee shop and people just say normal milk and it's [00:28:01] just you know it just it just pisses us off in a very specific way because there's nothing normal about it so yeah that is the kind of more reasoning yes she's nodding I did well all right if you want to save like 10 minutes for the audience then we have 10 minutes left for for us my offer would be we focus on art and activism like merging overlapping or about more like your own personal discomforts going through it and like some kind of resistance from the society around like I want to give you the choice because for me both of those questions are interesting but I don't think we will have enough time so activism or the backlash some kind of pushback from society maybe so feel feel free to go deeper because this joining an event like this definitely is a form of activism yes yeah definitely so again thank you for the invitation to be a part of this and have a chance to be actively activist I suppose and also just to get the broader audience and to meet more like-minded people is really incredible, like reaching across such a vast space here. So pushback, I wouldn't say I have gotten a lot of pushback on my vegetarian paintings. I mean, individually, people will see them and maybe make a face. Matt and I in Washington, D.C. would do festivals, and you're one-on-one with people giving you the faces. Sorry, I have a specific question. And like probably my favorite painting of yours is the kid with the McDonald's nuggets. And he's having like tiny real little chicks dipping in ketchup. So probably McDonald's would reach out to you saying something. Not McDonald's. No, and we've joked before that wouldn't it just stink if McDonald's stole my image as an advertisement [00:30:05] or other vegan-minded paintings that if you view them from a different angle, maybe they could be the perfect ad for for me and that would just be unfortunately it's how matt can tell like it's sort of happened to him um yeah so the the painting that he's describing is just a little kid at a dinner table dunking little yellow chicks in ketchup um that is probably one of three four five paintings of mine that have truly gone viral and that's very rewarding um it's a little annoying that they've gone viral without me in that maybe no one knows that i painted them but then they've gone so viral that now people do know I painted them because they've seen them and looked it up so that's That's very cool. People comment sometimes under the pictures like by the way the artist name is the blah blah check out their other pictures There's enough people out looking out for me now that like they do know that it's me. So that's yeah, it's very nice So push back on the internet so PETA do you know PETA shares my work oftentimes and I try not to look at the comments because there's pretty much 90% pushback and and hate and ugly things and then they'll just say and you suck as a painter like thanks okay so that's all they can do or like yum is the most common comment so pushback on vegan stuff I can sort of laugh off and it's not I mean what can you say how can you be like no it's really awesome to kill animals like there's really not a huge argument. I don't care if people eat meat on like, everyone has free will. I'm not here to tell someone what to do. I'm just sort of saying, if you're going to be great, if you'd like know a little something about it. Pushback, though, I've been very familiar with having painted about a lot of politics. And I also dabbled for quite a few years in painting about religion on the front that I personally am agnostic, but went through an atheistic stage. And that was definitely my most controversial part of life is people challenging me on that, which I totally understand. It's the touchiest thing that it's very tricky to get into. I'm thankful to have gotten that out of [00:32:00] my system and talk about animals more. Pushback wise, though, something I could really get into that Matt and I have definitely experienced painting about politics, living in Washington, D.C., we've truly seen the reaction from people change over the years. It's a different climate to talk about things. Everyone's a little bit more, how do you, you might let you do this part. I'm going to, yeah, so I'll let Matt sort of, because he can then speak for our experience together on pushback wise. You'll cover that part of it. Yeah. Okay. I'll be fairly brief. Yeah. So we live, we live about four blocks from the White House and so we paint there. We live and paint in this little apartment and sleep in a bunk bed. I'll be turning 60 on Thursday. So my parents are very proud that I sleep in a bunk bed. Because it saves space. It saves space, yeah. So we use our whole space for painting. Anyways, so one of the things that really happened and we really noticed recently was, I think it started with COVID. And we painted about COVID. We paint it, we like to paint, what we say is we paint the times we live in. So if we painted anything about COVID, all of a sudden people would be like, they could take it a negative way. And that was usually what it was. And then, so especially, you probably know where this story is going. If we paint Donald Trump, everybody gets angry. Like, it's just, and he's our president, but we paint, and we're not, you know, we're not like really making too many statements, but like the day he was shot in the ear, like we painted that. And people are like, oh, do you like Trump? And we're like, no, it just happened. And it was like, you know, huge world news. And he's our neighbor. He lives right, just right over there. It's kind of weird. So anyways, yeah, we get a lot, we get a lot of pushback. We may have lost Facebook friends we don't know about, like how many follows you have and how many people unfollowed. I'm not talking about that. Two personal friends of ours, after we painted about Donald Trump being shot because it was in the news, were so concerned, to use their words. [00:34:04] I'm concerned about what you mean by this. I'm like, first of all, it's painting. We are allowed to paint it. So losing a personal friend over painting about our president being shot. Like that's how touchy things have gotten. Yeah, and we paint Joe Biden, we paint Obama, we paint, you know, all of all of all the presidents, because they're, like I said, our neighbors. And anyway, so that that's it. And then, I don't know, I mean, the thing is, is, you know, we do have political opinions, but we don't want people to know what the paintings mean. Sometimes we love it when they come up with their own experience, their own idea of what the painting means, what that's, that's what art is. and that's like music i mean because i love like the really hard hardcore music from the you know some people call punk but whatever whatever it's called from like the 80s and the 70s and that stuff i mean some of those lyrics today i mean you'd be like people like oh we can't do that song or we can't do this can't do that because somebody's gonna say something and you know oh we better not post our song on facebook because it'll you know make people mad and so so i come from more of like that 70s 80s attitude i'm just like i'm just gonna do what i want. I guess we call ourselves libertarian-minded in America, where it is about freedom and it is about freedom of speech. speech that's so important to me and it's about you know and i'm not going to say too much here because i'm this isn't my country but but it is like it's very very important to me um a lot of those american american things that you know that we sometimes take for granted so yeah activism or pushback or both of them like because you are not just a nice smiling uh artist who is offering their lovely pictures yes you are coming with a big suitcase of messages in your art i was just about to say yes how like i i think me being more um perhaps sometimes uh politically um [00:36:06] let's just say i i think i get in trouble sometimes for because i do express like yeah my views and my statements and I feel them. I feel them in my everyday life and like I have no problem kind of talking about them through my work and with the audience. But of course, the interpretation, you cannot control. You create and then it leaves the studio and then it has a life of its own and it can be taken in different contexts. People can unfriend you because of that and believe that you're saying something else, whereas in reality, you're just doing completely something different. And so, yes, that happens. And in the art world as well, specifically, I feel like art as a form of activism and then the fact that it's the two camps. It's the art world and then it's the activist world. And I can say that at times I have felt excluded from both, even though I do both. so there's but there's ways on how you can look at it um at this point in my life in my career i chose to believe that those that i attract with what i do and those who help me and give me opportunities and include me and invite me those are the people that i should be concentrating on instead of you know thinking about why i'm not accepted in this exhibition or this opportunity or whatever even if I have more experience or professional merit than anyone who's in like you know it's all perspective I can only control how I feel about it so at this point I feel like I'm calming down when I was like just I think still studying and maybe when I just moved to Latvia I was a bit more sensitive um but at this point I'm like I have enough I have enough vegan friends so I'm good and yes like the activists as well some people don't take it very seriously you know because it's it's just painting and there's honestly there's people who come to my [00:38:05] exhibitions who are kind of like not very um serious about art they they're my friends they come to support me but they don't think that art can change the world and then here I am at the moment actually preparing a new kind of installation body of work for an event in October and I'm going to be talking about how art has literally changed the world and without mentioning any specific artist names I can even just say a personal story of one of my friends who messaged me one day like 10 years ago at this point being like Katrīna I've gone vegan I heard this rap on Facebook and it was like one of you know how now the vegan music is kind of more of a thing but this was back like 10 years ago when it was like the first rap about uh eating animals and she was like and that's it clicked for me and she like works with animals in a zoo and she's like now at this point she's commissioned several paintings of mine so like if a rap on Facebook can change somebody's you know it's all about experience and some people yeah they come and see the paintings and they can cry or they can get very angry even if they hate it like they just like that still is an experience that they had and maybe five years from now a certain group of events will take that will make it click for them that this might have been the seed to all of that so yes uh i personally am honored that i'm part of the both artistic and activist camp and i am very grateful for all of my colleagues and my friend who are in this camp with me and accept me. so yes thank you I have a lot of questions but probably I should give an opportunity to the audience as well so yeah we have already and yeah by the way try to be brief and also say if you want someone specifically to answer the [00:40:06] question or all of them you mentioned your libertarian I have a question are Are people free to do heavy drugs? Oh, in America, I guess they do. So yeah, there's a lot of heavy drug use. I don't. I don't do any drugs. I guess alcohol is my drug. Caffeine. Yeah, and me saying I'm a libertarian, I'm not like a card carrying. I just think that for me, I don't say I'm a Democrat or Republican because we have really a two-party system in America. and the Democrats are what we call like more the progressive and the Republicans are more conservative so I like to in a sense kind of cover both bases are all bases by just saying libertarian and that way I look at the gray rather than the black or the white like I'm trying to you know not like every subject I'm not like all Democrat I'm one thing and all Republican so that's that's the why I said that but yeah um I personally do not uh do drugs but yeah we do we do have a we have a very big drug problem in America right now yeah I have a question um are you pacifist and what is your your attitude towards pacifism to everybody you know I guess I'm really not a pacifist 100% I think there is always a time when maybe a country or people need to fight and if if someone's trying to take down your, you know, if it's peaceful, if you're a peaceful country and you have laws and you have health and you have, [00:42:01] maybe you let people be vegan, you let people be vegetarian, you let people drink or smoke pot or whatever, and then somebody comes along and tries to take that away, take away your freedoms, I think you do need to fight. So that's a very, you know, idealistic way to say it, But I wouldn't say that war is never necessary. This is something you can record today. It's very rare you'll hear me say this, but I'm going to let Matt speak for the both of us on that one and let it stand. As a married couple, we've been together for 26 years, 26 years thereabouts. You know, on some things you grow together and some things you might have different opinions on, of course, because we're two people. and back to the libertarian and the pacifist the two of us together are a very middle of the road when it comes out in the wash like he he leans more conservative on some things and I lean more liberal on things but being together for this long we don't have any huge straying opinions that are different from one another so I'll let I'll let that answer stand for the two of us I would probably veer towards somewhere in the middle as well like as much as I am a liberal I do see obviously there's times when you have to stand up for what it is that's not being respected especially when it's concerning these huge powers of systems and oppression it's just really heartbreaking the amount of control that a very small entitled group of believe that they have over large nations and populations of humans but at the same time I also have a very difficult situation with this notion of yes like personal maybe what's my personal I don't know how to phrase this [00:44:02] my responsibility maybe in my own country because I don't feel very tied to a single country. I am an earthling foremost. I am not very... I've lived very long periods of times in different countries. I've studied in four different countries altogether. So I don't know who am I supposed to be standing... you know what I mean? Like I don't know where my place in that is. But I do know that I am a citizen of the earth. I'm an animal. So what I try to do in my personal and professional life is speak for the intersectional range of everybody who is the unheard mistreated and we're talking like largely you know so that that would be my stand so yeah maybe we cut this and and give space for the next performance by Ania Sprivola before the verdict. And this, I really hope the conversation is going to continue. People, please check them out on social media. Yeah, I'll just wrap it up with a plug. So yeah, Matt and I work full time, like you said, put our paintings online every day. We live off of our art, off of our websites. So we have cards with us. I would love to share with you our contact information, our websites for you to follow and reach out, ask questions later if you have them. We're open books and available. And if you ever come to the U.S. and want to visit D.C., also stick your head out and say, hey, we met you in Riga. But, yeah, so I'd love to hand out cards if anyone wants one to see our more work online. [00:46:03] That's great. Yes, and I would encourage everybody to use the opportunity. America is a long, far away. you know so while they're here just come up to them and talk to them they're friendly and open and I'm here all the time so oh yes we don't bite Katarina saying we're not biting but thank you all for coming yeah really appreciate your time and energy thank you The performance is going to take place downstairs at 6 sharp. Yeah, we'll go there. 6.05. So which performance is going to be played? The name is, sorry. But it's the one with milk? No, that was last night already. This one is before the verdict. Actually, I don't know much else about it. It's longer. I feel like there is such a service. Because that's what we're talking about. It's also interesting, the book, the fiction, they were tense about labels, about sometimes you can get out. [00:48:02] Yeah, and it does that. Yeah, I mean, we're so used to being, like we can answer questions about really interesting things, but we get good at that because it's so, Thank you. but I believe in things and I tell people that's right that's so divided Thank you. Thank you so much. You are a very good animal. Thank you. We will bite you. [00:50:45] No, I did it twice already. But we will see. Because they are older than me. I have an iPhone. I can record a video with the audio cable. It will be okay.