Claudia Bernardi Bio

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Claudia Bernardi is an internationally known artist who works in the fields of art, human rights and social justice. In her work over the past two decades, she has combined installation, sculpture, painting and printmaking. Additionally, she has focused her art praxis in developing and facilitating community and collaborative art projects working with/ and in collaboration with communities that have suffered state terror, violence, forced exiles and who are victims of human rights violations.

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 a 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 now as the “Perquin Model” has been successfully implanted in Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Northern Ireland, and Argentina. For the last five years, Bernardi has been working with unaccompanied, undocumented, Central American migrant minors, currently detained in maximum-security facilities in the United States.

Bernardi is a Professor of Community Arts, Diversity Studies, Critical Studies and has taught in the Graduate Program

of Visual and Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts.

Larry Larocco (D-ID) Biography

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Larry Larocco is an American politician who served two terms in the United States House of Representatives, representing Idaho’s 1st congressional district from 1990 to 1994. He grew up in Van Nuys, California, a district of Los Angeles. Lorocco earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Portland in 1967, and went on to receive his M.S. from Boston University in 1969. He also studied at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies He served in the United States Army from 1969 to 1972 in military intelligence, holding rank as a Captain in the 7th Unit of the Army.

After being stationed in Germany, Lorocco was honorably discharged on June 10th of 1972. Not long after his military service ended, he got involved in politics and became known for his commitment in his district’s counties while running for representative. Lorocco won his congressional seat in 1990 and was eventually re-elected in 1992, winning every county in the district and with a 50,000-vote margin over his main opponent. He was elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Second and One Hundred Third Congresses (January 3, 1991, to January 3, 1995). He was also a United States Senate candidate from 2007 to 2008. Today, Larry Lorocco is the Founder and Principal of Larocco & Associates Inc. He and his wife have two children and two grandchildren.

Adrian Walker

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Biographical Statement 

Adrian Walker is an associate editor and columnist for the Metro section of The Boston Globe. He provides commentary and opinion on local and regional news as well as society and culture. Walker started as a Metro columnist in 1998. His column appears Mondays and Fridays.

Ron Christie

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Ron Christie is Founder and CEO of Christie Strategies LLC, a full-service communications and issues management firm in Washington, D.C. Christie is also the author of three books. His most recent title, Blackwards: How Black Leadership is Returning America to the Days of Separate But Equal was published in September 2012. His two previous books were Acting White: The Birth and Death of a Racial Slur (2010, St. Martin’s Press) and Black in the White House (2006, Thomas Nelson/Nelson Current). Christie served as a Resident Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government Institute of Politics for the Fall 2011 term at Harvard University. He served as an Inaugural Resident Fellow at the University of Southern California (USC) Center for the Political Future for the Fall 2019 semester. In 2020 Christie was appointed as a Senior Practitioner Fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. Additionally, he serves as a member of the Board of Counselors for the Arizona State University School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, chaired by former MD Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and former Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ).
Christie serves as an Adjunct Professor at the McCourt Graduate School of Public Policy and the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. In August 2015 he was named to the Board of Advisors for the inaugural Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service. He also teaches as a Lecturer at New York University’s Washington D.C. campus where he leads a course entitled “Private Influence in Public Policy” during the Spring Semester. He teaches “The American Presidency” during the Fall Semester. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the John Brademas Center at New York University. In April 2018 he was asked by the Aspen Institute to moderate a two-day Socrates Seminar entitled: “Learning to Lead & The Role of Congress” for emerging thought leaders of color on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Christie, a veteran senior advisor of both the White House and the Congress, brings years of government relations experience. Most recently, Christie served as Vice President of Navigators LLC – a strategic consulting and communications firm. He previously served as Executive Vice President and Director of Global Government Affairs at Ruder Finn and Of Counsel at the DC law firm of Patton Boggs, LLP. From 2002 to 2004, he was Acting Director of USA Freedom Corps and special assistant to President George W. Bush. He began service at the White House in 2001 as deputy assistant to Vice President Cheney for domestic policy, advising the Vice President on policy initiatives in health care, budget, tax and other policy areas.
Prior to joining the Vice President’s staff, he briefly served as counsel to U.S. Senator George Allen (R-VA). He also served as senior advisor to former House Budget Committee Chairman and former Ohio Governor John Kasich from 1992 – 1999. Christie is a Co-Founder of No Labels – a groundbreaking movement led by Americans who embrace the new politics of problem-solving and are collaborating to find commonsense, non-partisan solutions to America’s toughest challenges. www.nolabels.org
A frequent commentator on current political events, Christie serves as a political analyst for BBC World in North America – a position he has held since 2014. He first appeared on their global 2012 election night coverage and reprised this role to cover 2014.