DIEPPE, N.B. -- Every year the City of Dieppe commissions a community art project. This year the challenge was to bring people together, while also keeping them apart.

“We wanted to bring happiness and warmth to everybody’s hearts,” says Gabrielle Maillet, a community officer.

The New Brunswick city hired two local artists to paint a total of 500 rocks, each one unique and with a connection to the city.

Natasha Hache is one of the artists talking part in the project. She was tasked with coming up with a theme for 250 rocks and has painted, on average, 15 a day.

“I like to go for drives very often, so sometimes when I’d go for a drive I’d get inspired from what I would see. So I’d be like ‘I remember this,’ go back home and try to paint the feeling I had with it too, because I paint a lot with emotions when I do it and I experiment a lot with colours,” says Hache.

Starting Wednesday, the rocks will be hidden throughout the city’s parks and trails. If you find one, you can keep it.

“We’re going out in all the trails and all the parks and we’re going to try to hide them well, because we want this to spread as long as it can so it’s going to be a nice treasure hunt,” says Maillet.

“We really want people to go out there and be active, but to also bring colour to their lives through art."