Life Badges
Life Badges is a public art activation by 2021 CreateSpace Public Art Residency artist Amanda Lederle. Inspired by the artist’s Emotional Maps series, this colourful project invites individuals to consider moments in their lives as they walk along the path of Amanda’s first-ever ground mural in Toronto’s Stackt Market.
Project at a glance
Location: Stackt Market, 28 Bathurst St, Toronto, Ontario
Artists: Amanda Lederle
Photo/Video Documentation: Selina McCallum
Year: 2021
Services: Artist Capacity Building
1
artist-in-residence
1
public art project
1
artist mentor
55
ft. long mural
About Life Badges
With a long-time goal of creating a mural project for many years, emerging artist Amanda Lederle made their vision come to life with the support of the CreateSpace Public Art Residency. This virtual residency allowed emerging or mid-career public artists, like Amanda, to create socially-engaged public artworks with the support of STEPS.
Amanda was inspired to create murals within communities. They were connected with artist mentor Yen Linh Thai (an illustrator and muralist based in Mississauga, Ontario), as well as Stackt Market, the site of Amanda’s first ever ground mural project and home to many public artworks by other local artists.
“The impact that I hope to see in the participation of this project is for people to think about what they’ve done in their lives, what they want to do, what they haven’t done, and consider how they can do that for themselves; to think about how that affects others and what they can do for their communities.”
Life Badges is a vibrant expression and celebration of one’s life journey. Each badge is an acknowledgement of the barriers one has had to face, celebrations in life, and the moments of acceptance and renewal. The project asks viewers to acknowledge the ways in which they have moved through circumstances that arise in their journey of life, by moving through each badge in the mural.
Inspired by Emotional Maps (another series by Amanda), Life Badges explores intangible feelings by using maps as a visual representation and illustrating the emotional struggles and triumphs that we go through as we each walk our own paths.
“It’s really awesome that emerging artists get to work on their own projects with assistance from STEPS to facilitate the logistics with guidance from mentors who’ve been through the process.”
“My experience with STEPS and Stackt Market has been amazing. They’ve been so accommodating and supportive, and very encouraging. I wouldn’t have been able to do all of this pre-production and production work without all of their support. I didn’t even know certain technical terminology before coming into this residency; the program really nurtured the artist in me to be able to do this.”
About the Artist
Amanda Lederle
Amanda Lederle (they/them) is a neurodiverse, queer Chinese-Canadian born, recovering perfectionist and empathic human. Their work aims to connect with others in one’s search for self-identity and understanding. Amanda’s work has been shown at group exhibitions, publications and has been invited to lead workshops and artist talks.
Funders
The 2021 CreateSpace Public Art Residency is made possible by support from TD Bank Group through the TD Ready Commitment, the City of Toronto as part of ArtworxTO: Toronto’s Year of Public Art 2021 – 2022, Partners in Art, MAWA, and funding provided by the Government of Ontario.
