Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s SPACE issue. From the very small to the enormity of our imaginations, essays grow from the furtive earth-bed of mushroom forests to the stars. Granville Carroll’s afro-futuristic cover artwork “Becoming” places us in space. John Angerson provides the obligatory rocket-propelled photos. Matilde Gattoni reminds us that one’s freedom to explore space can suddenly be taken away. The connection with space doesn’t stop there. Melissa Tuckman’s aptly titled poem “Space Junk” connects space debris to modern living. A new section on New Nature Writing probes the world beyond our urban confines. In the second outing for Decolonising Travel, there are excruciating, painful stories, sexual imaginings in the steam room, and personal reflections on historical ties to oppression; all whilst giving writers who have come through VONA/Faith Adiele’s writing programme space to share their work. We finish the issue with a stroll through London — the most ethnically diverse world capital — through the lens of Books Editor Nicolas D. Sampson.
...I come from metal, from shaky steps, from air. I arrived as a newborn at 2 years and 9 months old. I could say Umma for Mom and Nye for yes. All I knew about my birthmother was I came from her womb. I was inside her—my blood, my lungs, my lineage—close to her heart, for nine months. And then I wasn’t. My adoptive mother was a strong, independent, white woman who chose not to marry. She liked to say I came from a 747 that carried me from Seoul, Korea to the Philly airport in December of 1979.
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