Art Against Brutality
Community and Collaborative Art Projects With Survivors of Political Violence
by Claudia Bernardi
Claudia Bernardi’s recent work brings a much-needed contribution to the field of community arts and the burgeoning field of social practice art, as well as adding to post-conflict literature, dealing with the aftermath of state terror in Latin America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, México) and with Indigenous people of California in the United States.
Published by New Village Press
Distributed by NYU Press
Publication date: June 16, 2026
Pages: 328
Trim: 6 x 9 inches
Images: 38 color photographs
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-61332-287-1
Price: $30.00
Primary edition: paperback
Also available in hardcover and ebook
About Claudia Bernardi
Over the past thirty years, Claudia Bernardi has facilitated collaborative art projects with survivors of human rights violations & political violence. Art Against Brutality presents these works as evidence that community-based artistic expression can arise from collective intention, serve as a vehicle to retain memory and dignity as well as aiding the relentless demand towards obtaining social and human rights for communities affected by political violence.
“There may be nothing more significant in today’s world of toxic polarization and rampant violence than mobilizing resilience, resistance and solidarity. With her life-long journey as an artist and activist, Claudia Bernardi understands and exemplifies in these pages a profound gift: The creative act – the communitarian audacious courage to create – defies the grip of cruelty and humiliation and gives birth to the hope and voice needed to remember, imagine, heal, and transform. A must read for all of us pursuing a world in which love and beauty overtake the forces that divide, diminish, and dehumanize.”
—John Paul Lederach, Professor Emeritus, University of Notre Dame
“Bernardi has created a singular work of art and history that speaks to the curative power of artmaking for the wounded collective heart. Here, survivor fingers serve as “improbable paintbrush(es)” as the bodies of the interred and disappeared reappear on the canvas of once buried memory. It is a lesson in re-membering for all of us.”
—Cherríe Moraga, author, Native Country of the Heart