Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation has awarded 13 grants totaling more than $213,000 through its Artists & Communities residency program. The grants will support 13 artists who will spend more than 600 days in communities creating new work throughout the mid-Atlantic region in 2008-09. Projects include a collaboration among 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; 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; sculptor James Simon partnering with a neighborhood in Braddock, Pa., to transform a 4,000-square-foot abandoned lot into an urban park with mosaics, waterfalls, streams, ponds and sculptures; and more. [LINK]