Traditional Owners and artists are calling on the Darwin Festival to dump gas giant Santos as a sponsor as part of a larger protest against its Barossa offshore gas project and its Beetaloo Sub-basin development.

Territorians from Larrakia, Tiwi Islands and Central Australia, supported by almost 200 artists and creative producers have launched the ‘Darwin Festival-Dump Santos’ campaign calling on the festival to take a lead role in climate action and end “fossil fuel sponsorship” and promotion of oil and gas companies.

In a letter to the Northern Territory’s top multicultural arts festival, the signatories said that the Darwin Festival, set for August, should reject sponsorships from companies engaged in fossil fuel extraction.

“Artists and audiences have made it clear that we will not accept arts and cultural institutions being used as a vehicle for the promotion of fossil fuels and the damage their use has on our collective future,” the letter said.

The letter also states that festival organizers will be providing Santos with a platform that it claims will permit it to continue its harmful practices that are damaging communities, cultures and the climate, adding that fossil fuel sponsorship and messages promoting its expansion have no place in the Territory’s arts, culture and public institutions.

The letter’s signatories include Denise Quall, Mikaela Earnshaw, James Cubillo, Genevieve Grieves and Kamahi Djordon King.

The sponsorship deal includes the naming rights to the free opening night concert on August 4, called Bungul, where Yolnu dancers and songmen perform with the Darwin Symphony Orchestra.

Marie Munkara, a Tiwi Islander and author, said Santos was “nothing more than a smiling assassin”.

“They think their funding of the arts and their platitudes about Indigenous culture will give them credibility and buy them the freedom to continue destroying our sacred sites, our land and our planet,” she said.

Santos has been in partnership with the Darwin Festival for 26 years, the board said in response.

“The board has met with representatives of the concerned artists and has agreed to meet with them again, and other key stakeholders after this year’s festival to discuss its future funding options,” the festival board said in a statement after receiving the letter.

The board added that while they understand the signatories’ concerns, sponsorship contracts for this year’s festival were already in place.

“While there are already contractual commitments in place for this year’s Festival, the board has met with representatives of the concerned artists and has agreed to meet with them again, and other key stakeholders after this year’s Festival to discuss its future funding options,” it said.

In a statement Santos said it was a “corporate leader in climate action” and that the “vast majority of Australians support the work Santos is doing”.

“It is part of our commitment to support the communities where we live and work. In the Territory, we employ more than 100 local workers and we have spent $20m buying goods and services from 60 local suppliers this year.

“Santos is a corporate leader in climate action with a clear climate transition action plan and a target of net-zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2040.

Both Traditional Owners and artists called out Santos over allegations that the company had not obtained consent from some Tiwi Islanders for the exploration drilling of its Barossa offshore gas field, some 300 kilometres north of Darwin. The company has denied this.

The artists and TOs have also raised concerns over the company’s Beetaloo Basin project, saying that fracking will release greenhouse emissions that will harm the environment.