A meeting between the board, First Nations representatives and environmental activists fails to resolve tensions over the deal, which has been described as ‘artwashing’
Artists and event producers engaged for Darwin’s 2022 festival have been presented with a gag clause in their contracts, placing severe restrictions on what they can publicly say about the sponsorship of oil and gas company Santos.
The revelations follow an open letter and petition signed by more than 3,500 people which circulated earlier this month calling on the festival to dump the sponsor. The letter described Santos’s involvement with the festival as “artswashing”, making comparisons to the tobacco industry’s marketing model of previous decades.