HaydenRyan
ACOUSTIC
SOVEREIGNTIES
COMING UP
PAST EVENTS
Hayden Ryan is an Aboriginal sound scholar and artist of Yuin descent from the south east coast of New South Wales, currently residing in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia). His work centres Indigenous sonic an spatial practice, a concept that realises the inextricability of land, body sound and culture within Indigenous knowledge systems.
Hayden recently completed a Master of Music in Music Technology at New York University, where he wrote his thesis on Indigenising Sound Recording - focusing on colonial histories of audio technologies and their extractive functions that have remained unchallenged. During this time, he published and presented a paper at the 2024 Audio Engineering Society conference in Madrid, Spain, addressing the inherently colonial foundations that audio technology disciplines settle on.
Hayden is currently a Vice-Chancellor’s Indigenous Pre-Doctoral Research Fellow at RMIT University, where he is working on a PhD in Design in the SIAL Sound Studios. Hayden’s research foregrounds the importance of cultural space, in attempt to formulate a robust framework that allows sonic and spatial aspects of culture to play a prominent role in land and heritage protection.
In August 2025, Hayden will be a resident artist at the Helsinki International Artist Programme (HIAP) in Finland.
EDUCATION
RMIT University
PhD in Design (2024 - Present)
New York University
Master of Music in Music Technology (2022 - 2024)
RMIT University
Bachelor of Arts (Music Industry) (2019 - 2021)
PUBLICATIONS
SCHOLARSHIPS & GRANTS
2025 Vice Chancellor’s Indigenous Pre-Doctoral Research Fellowship
2025 Creative Australia - Helsinki International Artist Programme (Aug - Nov)
2024 Liquid Architecture x Blindside Emerging Curator Mentorship
2023 Audio Engineering Society - Educational Foundation Award
2023 New York University - Dean Mary Brabeck Scholarship
2022 Roberta Sykes Scholarship
2022 Australia Council for The Arts - First Nations Emerging Career Development Award
2021 American Australian Association - Aurora Indigenous Scholarship
SOUND & MUSICAL WORKS
Living Echoes (Dakota Feirer) (2024)
White Noise (2023-2024; 2025)
Sound Shell (2022)
53&17 Music Video (2020)