Press Releases

Baltimore, MD - February 22, 2008 - Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation announced today that it has awarded 13 grants totaling more than $213,000 through its Artists & Communities residency program. The grants will support 13 artists who will spend approximately 690 days in communities creating new work throughout the mid-Atlantic region in 2008-2009.

Artists & Communities supports partnerships between visiting artists and nonprofit organizations engaged in community-based arts projects. The program supports long-term residencies by visiting artists from the District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania at organizations located throughout nine states and jurisdictions served by the Foundation. The purpose of the program is to stimulate public participation in the arts and to support artists financially and creatively in their careers. The program encourages artists and host organizations to collaborate on projects that result in community involvement in the artistic process and support the creation of new work.

The 2008 Artists & Communities projects will take place in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Projects include a collaboration between photographer Dan Burkholder, the Huntingdon County Arts Council, and members of a rural Pennsylvania township to create a permanent installation at a local hospital celebrating the institution's centennial anniversary; and renowned theater artist Ping Chong working with the Village of Arts & Humanities and youth from North Philadelphia to develop a new play that explores the effects of urban violence on their lives. A complete list of funded residencies can be downloaded here.

The 2008 grantees were chosen from a field of 36 applications. A panel of artists and arts professionals experienced in community-based practice reviewed submissions and recommended the 13 funded applications based on artistic excellence, quality of the proposed project, and organizational capacity to implement the project successfully.

Artists & Communities 2008 is supported by funding from Johnson & Johnson, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The Heinz Endowments, The William Penn Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.


Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation supports the richness and diversity of the region’s arts resources and promotes wider access to the art and artists of the region, nation and world.