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.
...“Travel allows me to see the world through a different lens, to learn and grow to appreciate the beauty in differences.”
I am a traveler, storyteller, and photographer from Indonesia. I enjoy capturing moments both visually and in words, stopping them in time and sharing them with others to appreciate. With my background in journalism and environmental studies, I believe in the importance of stories for a brighter and more sustainable future.
...Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s DAWN issue. This bright, awakening, and challenging composition comprises a multitude of world views, places, and experiences. We explore new beginnings, transitions, dawnings, and realisations. New landscapes are explored. New places ventured. New experiences, in familiar environs, are retold. New is often seen as positive, yet change is often more complex, and we look at this too. With our return comes an expanded scope. Whilst retaining a core travel emphasis, we have added ‘place’ and ‘nature.’ Essays in Panorama have always been place-based but this increased focus on the natural world opens up new avenues to explore. With this in mind, we have added a new Ecology & Conservation Editor, Julia Knights, who uses this first issue to speak with world-leading botanist Ghillean Prance. The result is an enlightening and frightening conversation about the Amazon rainforest.
...As Rob Dückers, our tour guide for the day at the Amsterdam Museum, explained the Dutch’s practical mindset of making money, I couldn’t help but feel nauseous and irritated. From the early 1600s, the Dutch had colonised Indonesia for its spices, mostly for cloves, mace, and nutmegs, thereby monopolising the spice trade, as well as exploiting many of Indonesia’s natural resources. Despite the centuries of shared history, the Dutch have chosen not to interfere and change the culture and welfare of the Indonesians. Unlike many others whose countries have been colonised by imperialists, the people of Indonesia do not have a broiling hatred against the Dutch, and neither have I.
...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 sun peeks through green leaves and branches, encasing the dome beneath the canopy in a brilliant light show. With every gentle touch of the wind, the leaves rustle, as if gossiping with each other in both loud and hushed tones: who is this earthen being that dares walk into our world? Like invisible, mythical creatures, the breeze lightly plays with your hair, tickling your ear and brushing against your cheek as you listen to their foreign gossip. The few streaks of golden sunlight piercing its way through the thick foliage dance to an otherworldly tune… branches swaying to the lullaby of the humble breeze. The orchestra of gushing winds and chirping birds swells, and then, all at once, it quiets into an eerie yet serene silence. As if the air itself is alive, tingling with energy, you feel as if you’ve stepped into another world—one of magic and stories of both miracles and tragedy.
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