Mexican Senator Susana Harp has advocated for, and successfully sponsored, the most comprehensive legislation for the protection of Indigenous intellectual property rights available internationally. In conversation with Heritage by Hand owner, Heidi McKinnon, they will discuss how this legal protection against plagiarism of traditional designs was achieved and its global importance for cultural heritage.

Senator Susana Harp holds a degree in Psychology, specializing in Gestalt Psychotherapy as well as a Master’s in Neurolinguistics. She currently serves as Senator of the Republic for the State of Oaxaca and President of the Culture Commission. She has successfully promoted the constitutional recognition of peoples of Afro-Mexican descent which is currently being recognized through 49 federal laws. Senator Harp sponsored the Federal Law for the Protection of Cultural Heritage Indigenous and Afro-Mexican, which puts at the center of decisions communities and is the first Collective Law of its kind in Mexico. She has also proposed various initiatives in favor of the environment. As a singer and cultural promoter, she has produced various musical and literary works.

Heidi McKinnon is a museum consultant who has worked for twenty years to support cultural heritage, social cohesion and systemic change as a curator, writer, public speaker and social entrepreneur, working on issues of historical memory, Indigenous history, human rights, and women’s rights throughout Latin America. In 1996, Heidi began her career working with artisans and culture bearers for the Smithsonian Center for Folklife Studies for the 1998 Smithsonian Folklife Festival program. In 1999 she became part of the curatorial team for the inaugural exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution/National Museum of the American Indian which opened in 2004. Ms. McKinnon served as the founding Director of Exhibitions and Planning for the Museum of Freedom and Human Rights in Panama City, Panama, which opened in 2019. She created the inaugural exhibitions for the museum which is one of only a handful of museums worldwide that explores the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in our lives. In 2020, Ms. McKinnon opened Heritage by Hand, a lifestyle brand focused on handmade work from across Latin America, where Heidi takes her museum experience to the retail arena mixing her personal interests in cultural preservation and environmental sustainability.