Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bernardi lived through the Argentine military junta that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983. As a result of this system of repression over 30,000 Argentine citizens disappeared. The desaparecidos are the victims of the so-called “Dirty War”.  She left Argentina in 1979. In 1984, a forensic anthropology team was established in Argentina to supply evidence of violations of human rights carried out against civilian populations. Bernardi participated, as mapmaker, and collaborated with the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team in exhumations of mass graves in El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, and Ethiopia. Emerging from this experience, Bernardi recognized that art could be used to educate, elucidate, and articulate the communal memories of survivors of human rights atrocities.

In 2004, Bernardi was awarded the Honorary Degree, Doctor of Fine Arts, Honoris Causa by the College of Wooster, Ohio. Bernardi 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, California College of the Arts, Mills College, 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 creating and directing art projects with political refugees and survivors of torture from Latin America. In 2010, Bernardi was awarded the International Beliefs and Values Institute Sustainable Visions and Values Award, James Madison University, Virginia. In 2015, Bernardi was awarded the Social Courage Award provided by The Peace and Justice Association, Georgetown University, Washington DC. Bernardi has worked in association with Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Bernardi has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally. Amongst the many venues, it can be highlighted: The International World Peace Center in Hiroshima, The Centre for Building Peace, Donegal, Northern Ireland, The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Sonoma Museum of Contemporary Art, The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, The Tokushima Modern Art Museum, The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, DAH Teatar in Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro; The University of Haifa, Israel, MACLA, Center for Latin American Studies at UC Berkeley, Carl Gorman Museum at U.C. Davis, Tucson Museum of Art, The Snite Museum at the University of Notre Dame.

Bernardi is the founder and director of the School of Art and Open Studio of Perquin El Salvador, serving children, youth, adults and the elderly. The approach of this unprecedented art, education and human rights initiative is rooted in the partnership created between art, artists and local institutions and NGOs. The art projects are designed and created in response to the demands, hopes and desires of the members of the community.

This model of education and community building through art known as the “Perquin Model” has been successfully implanted in Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Northern Ireland, Argentina, and the United States. For eleven years, Bernardi worked with unaccompanied, undocumented, Central American migrant minors, detained in maximum security facilities in the United States. She currently is working with families of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women of the Yurok Tribe in Northern California

Bernardi is Professor Emerita at California College of the Arts, where she taught Community Arts, Diversity Studies, Critical Studies, and the Graduate Program of Visual and Critical Studies.