Department of Creative Industries (DICREA) / Departamento de Industrias Creativas (DICREA)
In recent years, the commitments regarding cultural and creative clusters included in our previous report have been developed even further through measures, which strengthened the sectors´ competitiveness. Work related to the music, publishing, design and audiovisual clusters was intensified. We should like to highlight as one of the main actions, the incentives given to encourage and strengthen the presence of Uruguayan culture abroad, mainly through participation in international music, design and book fairs. DICREA co-funded the Uruguayan presence at various international events.
As far as the publishing industry is concerned, participations included the Frankfurt International Book Fair, Guadalajara International Book Fair, Buenos Aires Book Fair, the Semana Arte de Cataluña and Semana Arte Rio Grande do Sul, Shanghai Expo, Bologna Childrens´ Book Fair, and the Book Fair of Cuba.
The music sector also increased its presence in international festivals, including South by Southwest (SXSW), Buenos Aires Music Festival (BAFIM), Womex, MICA + preMICA, and FIFBA. In 2011, a Catalogue of Uruguayan Music was published, followed in 2015 by a Music Report.
The design cluster participated in the exhibition Uruguay Diseña (Uruguay designs), which included a visit to Europe, the Mercosur Furniture Fair in Brazil, and the Meeting on Public Design Policies (Buenos Aires/Colombia/Uruguay).
In our previous report we mentioned the implementation of the Culture Satellite Account for the analysis and evaluation of the economic impact of cultural activities. After its first edition in 2009, a second report was prepared in 2012 as part of the Programme for the Support of Inclusive Cultural and Scientific Communication Policies, implemented with the financial support of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) by DICREA on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Culture.
Please refer to Appendices
It is worth mentioning that in 2014 a group of Uruguayan artists, producers, publishers, managers and programmers coordinated by DICREA participated in the first edition of the Southern Cultural Industries Market (MICSUR) in Mar del Plata, Argentina, with more than eighty businessmen, producers and artists from different sectors (design, music, audiovisuals, publishing and performing arts).
Adding to this, the publishing cluster implemented the Books from Uruguay programme (BFU) to support the sale of copyrights for a selection of recently published books. The programme calls for submissions by Uruguayan authors, which will then be subject to a selection by the DNC of the books to be included in the annual catalogues. Two catalogues are published in Spanish and English: “Books from Uruguay” and “Children´s books from Uruguay”.
Annual catalogues have been published since 2012 until 2015.
Promoting the development of creative industries at the national level and their international marketing.
Approximate annual budgets:
Music: $50,000 dollars
Publishing: $60,000 dollars
Business training: $15,000 dollars
Development of cultural information: on average $50,000 dollars.