Whether talking about matters environmental or life in general, the terms ‘local’ and ‘global’ tend to be set in a binary ‘either/or’ configuration. This despite the obvious fact that these two states are not mutually exclusive but co-existent. For it is the very nature of our existence that we are simultaneously part of the wider world as well as wherever we happen to plant our feet.

“There is a received idea that the planet or the planetary is somehow opposed to the local, and this actually doesn’t make any sense once you start to investigate what the planet is, and where It is, because obviously it’s all around us, wherever we are,” says Ashish Ghadiali, whose important solo exhibition, Sensing the Planet, is now open at Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton, Devon. The show explores this intrinsic interconnectedness and how our multifarious interactions—cultural and historical as well geographical—all play into the planet’s current environmental emergency.

The planetary as the personal

Using photographic prints, film works and a sound piece all made within the last two years, Sensing the Planet examines the profound ways in which we are all impacted by these macro-micro intertwinings and their consequences. Among the many sources and narratives running through this multi-stranded show are James Lovelock’s Gaia theory, which posits that Earth and its biological systems behave as a huge single entity, and Charles Elton’s 1958 study The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants. They are also accompanied by a seven second gif illustrating the human cost of global warming, and a 10th century Shiaivite Sutra read by Ghadiali’s young daughter.

Then there’s the artist’s family daal recipe and footage of Ghadiali swimming in the River Dart, as well as a British propaganda film of the Mau Mau counterinsurgency in Kenya during the 1950s, and local television footage of the arrival of Gujarati refugees from Uganda to south west England in 1972. Ghadiali comments that, “we think of the planet and the planetary as something abstract and conceptual, but I’m trying also to demonstrate how deeply personal it is: my Dad, my grandparents, my children are also all in the work.”

Racial and climate justice

Reverberating throughout Sensing the Planet are the myriad ways in which colonial violence and extraction underpin the ecological breakdown that is currently affecting us all, but which is felt most keenly by the world’s climate vulnerable populations—those who were rarely responsible for the crisis in the first place. For Ghadiali, racial justice and climate justice cannot—and should not—be separated. He sees his current explorations of how they intersect as part of a lifelong dedication to racial justice. “This is my first exhibition as an artist—I’m an activist. I’ve been a racial justice activist all my life,” he states.

The twists and turns of this activist’s journey all feed into the current show at Thelma Hulbert. While still in his twenties Ghadiali was part of the team that, in 2006, set up the Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp in Palestine, which was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize last year. Then, after a spell writing Bollywood scripts, he came back to the UK and continued to work in film, directing a feature documentary about the War on Terror for the BBC and BFI.

By 2019 Ghadiali was an active member of Wretched of the Earth, a “grassroots collective for Indigenous, Black, Brown and Diaspora groups and individuals demanding climate justice and acting in solidarity with communities throughout the UK and in Global South”. Notably, he was involved in the organisation’s widely-cited open letter to Extinction Rebellion (XR), which called on XR activists to be more nuanced in their recognition of the historical and contemporary realities and complexities of climate justice. The letter also asked XR to reconsider strategies that would be harmful to Black, brown, and Indigenous activists, and to rethink the ways in which XR activist tactics build on white privilege.

Working with Wretched of The Earth increasingly brought Ghadiali into contact with a broader swathe of climate scientists, civil society groups, policymakers and—increasingly—arts institutions. These wider associations underpinned the establishment of Radical Ecology, which Ghadiali co-founded in 2021. This organisation continues to work across art, research and policy to advance environmental justice and collaborate with artists, climate scientists, grassroots activists and cultural institutions to deliver critical interventions and public art projects.

What does art mean to me?

“I started to get interested in the question of what does art mean to me, as someone who is invested in the idea of environmental justice, and how can we embody principles of climate or environmental justice from wherever we are,” he explains. “I also think of this question as an inquiry into how we can embody the planetary within ourselves.”

Which brings us back to Devon, where Ghadiali and his family have been based for the past few years. Commenting that his earlier activism was “always pointed elsewhere”, Ghadiali now sees his own sense of the planetary as being in great part embodied through “researching where I am in the South West of England, living in a coastal village and raising mixed race children”. He views this as part of “moving through the region’s deep imperial history as a place that is propped up on the early pioneers of colonisation to encounter the landscape and time”.

Rather than being didactic, Ghadiali sees his particular conflation of the personal, local and global as being more suggestive and pointing to new possibilities that lie within us all. “I think what we need is spaces in which we can create the world anew—we have to separate ourselves from the systemic baggage that we are carrying in this crisis and create new structures,” he says. “Dreams are a big part of the work and the methodology: dreams come first and worlds come later.”

While Ghadiali wants us to draw our own conclusions, one dream would undoubtedly be for the world’s governments to shake off their belief in national and individual interests being at odds with those of the planet, and to realise that in order for us all to survive, both the local and the global must be equally and simultaneously embraced.

• Ashish Ghadiali: Sensing the Planet, Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Devon, until 26 April