Bremen unveils 'Joy' mural, connecting communities across the nation

BREMEN, Ind. -- A new mural from the Mural Mosaic’s Global Roots Project, titled ‘Joy’ was unveiled for the Bremen community Friday afternoon.

The mural is part of a series titled ‘Family’ by renowned Canadian artist and mural designer, Lewis Lavoie, and features artwork from nearly 2000 artists across the nation and Canada, including Bremen locals.

The Mosaic’s Global Roots Project started in Canada in 2021, placing mosaic art tree murals in communities globally. Lavoie started the project in Canada, designing over 100 murals, and now the mosaic initiative is being worked on across the U.S. in a series called ‘America Connects’.

“When you look at a piece of art, you don’t know who’s behind it. You don’t know, you know, the color of their skin or their sex or anything about them. All you see is that art and then it starts to tell you a little bit about the person,” said Lavoie.

The Bremen mural marked the 28th unveiling in the 48 murals currently in the works in the America Connects series. Lauri Waidner, a board member for the Bremen Arts Collective, says this is mural is special for the small town. Bremen has been reimagining the historic downtown, where the new mural serves as a center piece in the growing community.

“The fact that it’s the biggest piece of artwork we’ve done on our local community and people have had a hand in it. So, they can take it very personally that they actually were part of this whole collective experience,” stated Waidner.

The unveiling event brought people from all over, some traveling hours and across states to see their tile in the Bremen mural.

Designer Lewis Lavoie explained while each tile maker is called an artist, anyone, old or young, can be apart of the mosaic art. He said these projects display human connection, showing diverse art that when put together, creates a beautiful example of unity.

“We give people guidelines and color codes and all this stuff, but I have this 80/20 rule that 20% of the people that participate in this are not going to follow anything, so we’re going to get these random tiles that don’t make any sense, and they’re gonna fit in somewhere. But the 80% holds everything together and that 80/20 rule is almost something in life now, there’s 80 percent of things going on in the world that’s holding the rest of us together,” said Lavoie.

Click here to see all the murals already created. If you click on a project and then on a tile, it will tell you information on that specific artist.