"The cleanest place on earth - and the dirtiest"

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by Photographer Angela Palmer / from The Guardian.co.uk

The air quality at Cape Grim in Tasmania is officially the best on the planet - a world away from the grime and filth of Linfen in China.

In March, I dreamed that I went to the most polluted place in the world and then to the cleanest. In the dream, I wore identical white outfits, which were then exhibited side by side in a stark white gallery. When I awoke, I resolved to enact my dream. It seemed like madness: I was preparing for my final show at the Royal College of Art in London and was intending to show work based on CT scans of an ancient Egyptian mummy. But the sense of "mission" was overwhelming. I jettisoned my original plans: this was to be it.

Research into the world's most polluted place pointed to Linfen, a city 485 miles (780km) south-west of Beijing, lying in a bowl in Shanxi province's coal-mining region. Linfen was named by the World Bank last year as having the worst air quality on earth. It features alongside Chernobyl in the Blacksmith Institute's list of the 10 most polluted places in the world and tops the list of most polluted cities compiled by China's own state environmental protection authority.

In contrast, Cape Grim, at the north-western tip of Tasmania, lays claim to both the cleanest air and water in the planet, largely due to the Roaring Forties, the winds that sweep in over the Southern Ocean. It is home to the Australian government's baseline air pollution station, whose unique "Air Library" collects samples as a "pure air" yardstick for scientists worldwide...

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The photographer seems to prefer the atmosphere of lots of people (the Linfen life) to that with few people and a better environment. While I enjoy places with rich culture - I generally prefer to visit sparsely populated places - the more natural, the better. (Though on many vacations - I often have a mix of both).