Art Against Brutality
Book by Claudia Bernardi
Art Against Brutality
Community and Collaborative Art Projects with Survivors of Political Violence
This book by CLAUDIA BERNARDI documents selected community-based art projects developed in Latin America and the United States that have been facilitated over the past thirty years with survivors of human rights violations.
Published June 16, 2026 by New Village Press
Distributed by NYU Press
328 pages, 6 x 9 inches
38 color photographs
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-61332-287-1
Paperback Price: $30.00
Also available in hardcover and ebook
“Claudia Bernardi, the world renowned painter, has spent much of her life guiding people and communities in their search to recover from horrific violence. In El Salvador, Argentina, Guatemala, Colombia, and other damaged places, Bernardi has made her home among communities of the traumatized – survivors of massacres and wars – and worked with them in creating art as a way to recover their lives. Art Against Brutality is a gorgeous, redemptive story of Bernardi’s work with survivor communities as they struggle to paint the murderous violence they managed to survive. In reading this beautiful book, we come to recognize Bernardi as a true artist, not only in her personal creation of beauty but as an infallible guide in restoring to shattered people, through art and storytelling, their vital sense of hope. In its unfolding revelation of community and truth, Art Against Brutality is an essential book.”
—Mark Danner, author of The Massacre at El Mozote
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter One
Art in a War Zone: The Beginning of Walls of Hope
Chapter Two
“Memory Is What We Use to Forget”: Recovering Memory in El Mozote
Chapter Three
“The Moon Had Forgotten Us”: Weaving History with Indigenous Women Survivors of Sexual Violence During the Guatemalan Armed Conflict
Chapter Four
On Peace and Fear: Murals Painted by Ex-Combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and Civilian Victims of Political Violence
Chapter Five
Tzuultaq’a: “Earth and Valley, High and Low, Woman and Man, Good and Evil, Opposites That Hold the Universe”: Survivors of the Panzós Massacre Reclaim Their Past in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala
Chapter Six
Whispers in the Desert: Ciudad Juárez, Art at the United States–Mexico Border
Chapter Seven
The Disappeared Are Appearing: Families of the Disappeared Paint a Mural in a Former Clandestine Detention, Torture, and Extermination Center in Argentina
Chapter Eight
Unspoken Words, Steps on Sand: A Visual Investigation of the Journey of Undocumented, Unaccompanied Central American Migrant Minors Detained in a Juvenile Detention Center in the United States
Chapter Nine
Whispers Flowing in an Endless River: Mural Painting with the Yurok Tribe
Chapter Ten: Conclusion
“The Brush Is Like a Candle; It Has Light on One End”: The Unpredictability of Endless Fear and the Determination of Hope
About
Grounded in careful listening to its participants, Bernardi’s book reflects stories shared by survivors of unfathomable abuses who were willing to speak about their painful experiences and share their commitment towards a more just and hopeful future. These narratives are conveyed through the murals and become a physical expression of color, lines and intention.
These artistic projects across Latin America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, México) and with indigenous communities in Northern California inform the fields of community arts, social practice, Latin American studies, human rights and post conflict studies. The participants shaped the themes, narratives, and intentions of each mural, allowing the artwork to emerge from shared memory rather than from the vision of a single artist. Children, youth and adults worked together, using conversation and collective decision making to identify common concerns rooted in history, loss, displacement and persistence.
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.
