The Canada 150 Mosaic will celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary through art in 2017.
There are 150 communities and over 80,000 partners creating one united mural for one great nation.
Each province and territory will have maybe 15 communities who will be selected to represent the province and the nation. Morinville was one of the lucky Alberta communities to be selected.
Morinville residents got to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary this month by taking part in the Canada 150 Mosaic project run by St. Albert artist Lewis Lavoie. The Morinville community received a $10,000 grant from the Canada 150 Fund to create their own mural in conjunction with Lavoie and his team.
Lavoie worked with the Town and the Morinville Historical and Cultural Society to design an approximate 350 tile mural painted by students and residents.
The mural was created in Morinville Feb. 6 and 7 at the Morinville Community Cultural Centre.
Any person can follow the progress of all the Canada 150 Mosaic Murals on the internet — except Morinville has opted out of this global coverage. The completed projects that can be viewed, include Vegreville, Ponoka, Taber, communities in Ontario, and Saskatchewan and so forth — except Morinville.
The mural is a cultural mosaic of Canada — except Morinville does not want their completed picture to be featured on the sites. They want the completed mural project to be unveiled locally at the Morinville Museum.
On Tuesday afternoon, Felicity Bergman, Corporate Communications Coordinator for the office of the CAO for Town of Morinville made a news release to the media on the Canada 150 Mosaic Mural project.
“We are very appreciative of the media’s interest and coverage of Morinville’s involvement in the Canada 150 Mosaic Mural. We are kindly asking; however, that all media refrain from publishing/disseminating images and photos of the finished mosaic.
Our hope is for a complete unveiling of the mosaic to take place July 1, 2017 as part of the Canada 150th celebrations.”
For the hopes of having a few more people partake of the local Morinville Canada Day celebrations, Morinville has now been unable to be viewed globally, nationally or internationally through the Canada 150 Mosaic website.
It is also unable to be seen through Facebook pages or other sources and through any social media format coverage of any photos of the completed project at this time.
The Canada Day Celebrations in Morinville are a success. They are great, and we do not need to remove ourselves from global coverage during Canada 150th celebrations to attract more people to the event.
This media ban by the Town appears to provide the perception that the Town is willing to dampen the spirit of the intended National project to draw attraction to a local event that it appears to not be satisfied with in its attendance.
The project hopes to be in the Guinness Book of Records. This is a huge undertaking. More than 80,000 participants from coast to coast painting and 150 individual murals, which, when united, would create a gigantic mural made up of train cars forming a Giant Art train celebrating Canadian Communities across Canada. The mural, if ever connected would be over 365 meters wide, the size of about four football fields and 8 feet high.
But it looks like Morinvillians and the world will have to wait until Canada Day to see our efforts.
-LR
Publisher’s Note: The Canada 150 Mosaic Facebook page published photos of the nearly completed and completed mural last Thursday. – SD
So – Whose brilliant idea of withholding this from the world was it?
If it was the communications guru’s – she should be fired… immediately! If this belongs to the Mayor or any of the Councillors – they should resign… immediately!
Seems to the last time something like this happened was when, for some strange reason, we couldn’t find out whose signature appears on the document which authorized the massive cost overrun on the Town Hall renovation project.
Transparency? Oh yeah…
The next election can’t come soon enough!
Have a nice day
This is wrong!!
Sad that Morinville chose to NOT be a part of a National Celebration. I for one, chose to
attend the event and do a tile, because of the different communities that I saw on line. I hope that the Town of Morinville reconsiders so that other communities across Canada can view and see what Morinville is about.
Sad should go along with the intended purpose
That’s kinda upsetting that they didn’t partake in the global coverage 🙁 I hope our release doesn’t suffer too much over it
Morinville has done a phenomenal job coming together as a community and creating a legacy for all to share.The workshops in the community were spectacular!! The passion represented in this article and the comments below it show just how much pride the community has. It also shows how excited the community is to be a part of this project which is wonderful!!
Just so the public knows- Morinville is not the only community to choose to unveil their mural on Canada Day. Some murals painted by communities months before Morinville also will not be unveiled until Canada Day as decided by their communities. It may or may not be a popular decision with some but at the same time it also is not unusual for the unveilings to be delayed for a special occasion.
The Canada 150 project carries on past Canada day. Thousands of people will continue to join into the project as painters and fans. You can just imagine the attention the project will receive on Canada day when multiple murals from across the country are finally revealed after months of anticipation all at one time!
Many murals will be unveiled on Canada Day and many after Canada Day. It is a wonderful project of bringing people together through a creative spirit and you can rest assured the excitement that is being shown in Morinville right now will come through when the mural is revealed in its entirety. Continue to be proud and definitely get excited Morinville – You have created something beautiful!
Phil Alain – Producer Canada 150 Mosaic
Thank you Phil, as the coordinator for this project I want to thank everyone who participated and the opportunity to be part of a national project is definitely a highlight for us.