On 1 December 2020, the second session of Creating a Living in Latin America, an online event with authors’ and creators’ organisations from Latin America, took place. This session focused on what issues Latin American writers’ organisations fight for, as well as the need for building a common agenda.
The first panel was moderated by Alejandra Jorge, Chair of the Regional Centre for Latin America of the International Federation of Translators (FIT LatAm). In this panel, the participants talked about how essential creators’ organisations and their work is in protecting the rights of authors in Latin America. Diego Agrimbau, member of the Argentine Illustrators Association and comic book writer, discussed subsidiary rights and intellectual property, as well as self-management, publishers and agents. Mateo Cardona, Vice President of the Colombian Translators Association, explained the need to reform laws to adequately protect the rights of translators in his country. Estela Consigli, Vice President of the Argentine Translators Association presented the challenges in positioning the translator as an author, and Luis Alberto González, President of the Cuban Translators Association discussed the situation of translators in Cuba. Marcelo Guerrieri, President of the Union of Argentine Writers spoke about the challenge of building an association to improve the conditions of the writer as a worker. Closing the panel, Nicolás Jusidman highlighted the obstacles of Visual Artists in Argentina.
On the second panel, the participants discussed building a common agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean. Mateo Cardona from Colombia and Arturo Vázquez Barrón, President of the Mexican Translators association, co-founders of the Ibero American Alliance for the Promotion of the Literary Translation (ALITRAL), outlined the affinity between the aims of ALITRAL and IAF. They proposed to share the knowledge and experience of ALITRAL regarding authors’ rights with creators’ organisations, as well as receiving authors and translators as members of their associations in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. They committed to help share the IAF’s principles where possible. Paula Casal, member of the Union of Argentine Writers focused on the challenges and strategies for diverse representation. Representing the Visual Artists from Brazil, Fabiana Nascimento, General Director of Brazilian Association of Visual Arts Authors Rights (AUTVIS) spoke about how necessary it is for these organisations to represent creators in the Latin American territories. To close the second panel, David Felipe Alvarez, academic and copyright specialist in intellectual property and human rights, presented possible strategies to promote and strengthen the common work of all the organisations in the region, with the support of IAF, for the benefit of Latin American creators.
Maria Fernanda Mendoza, IAF Consultant for Latin America, concluded the meeting by commenting that a plan for 2021 will be made based on the discussions of both sessions.
John Degen, on behalf of IAF, then closed the meeting by thanking, once again, all attendees for their contributions and enthusiastic participation. John shared his hopes that this was the first solid step to joining Latin American organisations in a strong international network, working for the benefit of authors around the world.
You can watch the first and the second panels of the discussion below:
Creating a Living in Latin America: What do creators’ organisations fight for in Latin America
Creating a Living in Latin America: Building a common agenda
Read more about the first session of this event here.