"Cultural practices – what Clifford Geertz has called the webs of significance which man has spun and in which he is himself suspended – are forms of sustenance that can restore a sense of integration of the self with natural systems, because their mode is connective, collaborative and associative. But they have to be enabled to do that, or resources will drift habitually towards the Romantic model of the exceptional individual set apart from society, or towards instrumentalist provision of cultural ‘services’ in areas of perceived disenfranchisement and social marginality."

Ruth Little's keynote for Arts Council England & Festivals Edinburgh Talent Symposium 2011 explores the role of stewardship, connections and ecology as contexts for the development of talent.

"The problem with the way we often think about the making of art is that it reflects the forms we see about us in society: which are linear, fragmented, isolating and acquisitive; modeled on the efficiency, speed and editorial capabilities of our technologies and on the restless incremental improvement of consumer products. The world is so full of made and possessed things that in the wealthier nations we’re losing sight of the processes of making, and the relationship between materials, time and attention that they require."