Oakland, CA - Claudia Bernardi, internationally recognized human rights and social justice activist, is a visiting professor of art history at Mills College this spring. Teaching a class in New Directions in Art History and Criticism (“La Cicatriz del Tiempo, The Scar of Time: Communal Remembrance and Transformation through Art”) endowed by Denise Beirnes, Bernardi has presented her sculpture, installations, and prints in more than 40 solo exhibitions worldwide.

A native of Argentina, Bernardi has witnessed numerous atrocities and human tragedies, yet her work reflects the persistence of hope and integrity. “You do not have the luxury of choosing to be apolitical in Argentina,” says Bernardi. “By simply living in a dictatorship, one is politically involved and constantly at risk.”

In 1984, a forensic anthropology team was established under the new government in Argentina to supply evidence of violations of human rights carried out against civilian populations. Returning to Argentina to work with the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (AFAT)—a team that included her sister, Patricia, one of the AFAT founding members—Bernardi learned the scientific methods of handling human remains. She joined the AFAT in investigations of human rights violations in El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, and Ethiopia. She later created archeological maps and transcribed the testimonies of families of the “disappeared ones.” From this experience, Bernardi realized how art could be used to educate, and to articulate the memories of atrocity survivors.

In 2004, Bernardi was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts by the College of Wooster, Ohio. She received an MFA from the National Institute of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, and an MA and her second MFA from the University of California at Berkeley.

She has taught at the Universidad del Salvador, Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, California College of the Arts, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She was a California Arts Council Artist-in-Residence from 1990–1993 and 1994–1995 for the Artist in the Community project directed to the population of political refugees and survivors of torture from Latin America, and was an East Bay Community Foundation Art Project Artist-in-Residence in 1993–1994.

Bernardi was the subject of a 2000 documentary directed by MAP Graduate Advisor Penelope Price Pasa un Angel/An Angel Passes, which screened at New York’s Margaret Mead Film Festival and at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Spire Award for Best Art Film. In 2004, film director Penelope Price created another documentary about the life and art of Claudia Bernardi, “Artists of Resistance.”

In 2004, Bernardi received a Potrero Nuevo Fund Grant to create an art school/ open studio in Perquin, a rural community in El Salvador.

Mills College is a nationally renowned, independent liberal arts college offering innovative degree programs for undergraduate women, and graduate degree and certificate programs for women and men. Consistently ranked among the top 75 liberal arts colleges in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, Mills is also recognized as one of the country’s 20 most diverse liberal arts colleges. The Princeton Review selected Mills as one of 11 colleges for first-time inclusion in its Best 361 Colleges–2005. Nestled in the foothills of Oakland, California on 135 lush acres, Mills provides a dynamic liberal arts education fostering women’s leadership, social responsibility, and creativity.

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