Led by Director and Chief Exec, Matthew Webb, over 120 editors, writers, and other contributors including Troy Onyango, Faith Adiele, Nicolas D. Sampson, Marie Baleo, Anne Louise Avery, Richard Ali, Robin Hemley, make Panorama possible.
...Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel’s WAR & PEACE issue. This collection, months in the making, deeply explores the themes of war and peace, with a special emphasis on travel storytelling that combines current events throughout the world with reflections on the past. The word war comes from the late Old English wurre, meaning a large-scale military conflict, the French guerre meaning dispute, and the German verwirren, meaning to bring into confusion. The word peace was first used in the 12th century to define the right of freedom from civil disorder, and it comes from the French pais, meaning reconciliation, silence, permission, and the Latin pacem/pax meaning freedom from war or conflict. These works explore all kinds of war, from military battles to drug wars to enforced participation in violence—and many layers of peace-seeking, from a culture’s recovery after devastation, to making peace with oneself as one observes a world seemingly on fire.
...The path is marked at regular intervals by plaques bearing the symbol of the journey, a scallop half-shell, set into walls and street signposts.
My own half-shell swung against my backpack, keeping my pace in a rhythmic whisper. The grooved lines of the shell represent countless paths that lead in scattered rays towards a single point of convergence. The image denotes the many individual interior pathways that lead to a shared center of spirit. It’s an old non-verbal sign that the bearer is a Camino pilgrim, and an invitation for other pilgrims to talk.
...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.
...The first letter I ever wrote to a magazine was to volunteer to be sent to a space colony so Planet Earth could be relieved of the burden of teenage me, all my human requirements, and hopefully those of many other volunteers. Co-Evolution Quarterly, a 1970s counterculture offshoot of The Whole Earth Catalog, was a publication of idealistic futurism that offered thoughts on what to do about the shrinking place we called home. In the wake of the first images of Earth taken from outer space, Earthrise (1968) and The Blue Marble (1972), we all saw our previously infinite planet floating alone in a vast black sea. The real constraints of our shared sphere had been made shockingly obvious. Resources were demonstrably limited; our passion for growth wasn’t. What to do? Well, for one young teen, the answer to saving the planet was space colonies: “Sure, I’d go.”
...From the size of this issue, it’s clear that the evocative (and elastic) theme of Space resonated with many. When I first heard it, my mind immediately travelled. I thought about the space that Black and Brown and queer and disabled bodies occupy in travel, from the moment they exit the home, and the constant negotiations that I, as a traveller in a Black female body, have to make to ensure my safety in public spaces. I thought about Afrofuturism and African Futurism, dynamic interdisciplinary movements that fuse the arts, Sci-Fi, and science and technology with Black history to imagine a better future, which is the subject of a recent and major exhibition at the Smithsonian/National Museum of African American History & Culture in the USA. I also thought about the airport, both liminal space and portal to possibility.
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