It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such. It is in the bog in our brains and bowels, the primitive vigour of Nature in us, that inspires that dream. (Thoreau, H. D. Journal 1856) There is an aesthetic of familiarity, a sedative of ordinariness, which dulls the senses and hides the wonder of existence. But we can recapture that sense of having just entered in on life, of having been newly placed on the earth, bu looking at our world n unfamiliar ways. (Dawkins, R. Unweaving the Rainbow 1998) The very notion of remoteness is itself a polarity, inseparable from its counterpart because it is defined by its relationshop to something characterised as its centre...so we should be careful with this interesting concept of the edge and keep in mind that one person's margin may be another's heartland Matarosso, F. On the edge: Art culture and rural communities 2001