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Artists and activists who oppose arts sponsorship from fossil fuel companies have said they intend to continue protesting as Western Australia\u2019s leading international arts festival, Perth festival, prepares to open this week.<\/p>\n
Artists have been staging protests around Perth\u2019s annual fringe festival, Fringe World, calling for the organisation to end its eight-year sponsorship arrangement with oil and gas giant Woodside in light of the intensifying climate crisis.<\/p>\n
Related: <\/span>‘Australia’s largest unsanctioned art show’: guerrilla bushfire campaign hijacks bus shelters<\/p>\n Attention is likely to shift this week to the more upmarket Perth festival and its relationship with oil and gas company Chevron, which operates Australia\u2019s largest onshore oilfield, among other projects.<\/p>\n The actions began in October last year, when a climate coalition of artists, activists and environmental organisations wrote to Sharon Burgess, CEO of Artrage Inc \u2013 the company that runs Fringe World \u2013 calling on the festival to terminate its relationship with Woodside.<\/p>\n Woodside has supported Fringe World since 2012. The festival is currently in the second of a three-year partnership with the company, which it lists as a \u201cprincipal partner\u201d. Artrage would not disclose the funding specifics of that arrangement, but arts companies tend to structure their partnerships in tiers, based upon the value of the sponsorship. Top-billed partnerships generally indicate the highest level of investment.<\/p>\n Artrage told Guardian Australia that Fringe World received a total of $1.4m in cash sponsorship and $2.5m of in-kind sponsorship in 2019. Woodside\u2019s partnership includes naming rights to the main festival hub, its awards program, and prominent logo presentation on many of the festival\u2019s marketing materials.<\/p>\n In her written response to the coalition on 22 October, Burgess said Fringe World\u2019s priority was \u201csupporting our artists and delivering a safe and friendly environment\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe respect everyone\u2019s right to protest, and so long as protest does not impede with our priorities then there will not be any change in this respect,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n The activist coalition had requested a meeting with Burgess, which was declined. The activists followed up with an email writing campaign in which more than 100 emails were sent to the festival.<\/p>\n In December, a cease and desist letter was sent from legal firm K&L Gates to the coalition on behalf of Artrage demanding they remove all Fringe logos and copyrighted property from their campaign material.<\/p>\n Perth festival, which opens on Friday, would not disclose details of its partnership with Chevron, but the company has naming rights for its festival hub and the festival claims that more than 2.3 million people have attended \u201cChevron-aligned festival events\u201d since 2013.<\/p>\n The artists are concerned that the relationship between fossil fuels companies and arts organisations contributes to a \u201csocial licence\u201d or \u201cveneer of respectability\u201d that normalises the dominance of fossil fuels companies in the face of climate crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a lot of companies that do some more questionable things to the Earth \u2026 it\u2019s in their best interests to saddle up with arts organisations \u2026 because it creates a different picture [of the company] in people\u2019s minds,\u201d artist and activist Ash Traylia told Guardian Australia.<\/p>\n Traylia was one of three artists who protested at Fringe World\u2019s launch event in January, taking the stage in faux-medieval costume just before festival director Amber Hasler was due to speak, to read a statement on behalf of Fringe artists. \u201cOur art [is being] tarnished and exploited as a multipurpose billboard for this corporation,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n Follow-up protests around the Fringe festival drew hundreds of people. The artists told Guardian Australia there would be more actions to come.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re hearing about two weeks of Indigenous art lined up at the Chevron Lighthouse,\u201d said Traylia. \u201cIt has not sat well with me for a long time that there\u2019s this weird disconnect [here].\u201d<\/p>\n Artists who spoke to Guardian Australia said they observed widespread frustration in Perth\u2019s artistic community about the \u201cimpossible choice\u201d of operating ethically in a city in which money from the resource sector is one of the primary sources of arts funding, and in which opportunities for mid-level artists were limited to festival season, thanks to complex shifts in the economic landscape since the mining boom.<\/p>\n