Hush is a small, queer ambient music night created on Gadigal Country by takatāpui organiser and facilitator Ben Parangi (Ngāpuhi) and artist and academic Blake Lawrence. Hush makes space for slowing down, immersing guests in gentle, contemplative DJ sets across genres. Attendees are invited to sit or lie in quietude while embarking on auditory journeys through music woven together with queer art, culture, resistance, healing and connectivity.
Hush encourages a different kind of attentiveness: to ourselves and others, to sound and space, to what's carried through them, and importantly, to Country—beside the more-than-human ecologies within which all of these are bound. In the thick of turbulent and violent times, Hush makes space through sound, bodies, breath and beats. Away from screens and algorithms, it asks what queer collective life might feel like when we gather differently: carrying hurt, humour and memory together while imagining gentler ways of being with one another and the worlds we inhabit.
For Superposition, Hush offers two sonic journeys at dawn and dusk. The 90-minute sets seek to unfold in harmony with ambient sounds in the field, at locations across Dharug and Gundungurra Country. Image credit: Tony Nhan.
Anvil Rock (dawn performance) is accessed by a 200 metre walk on uneven surfaces and steps. Govetts Leap (dusk performance) is fully accessible.
Ben Parangi (Ngāpuhi) and Blake Lawrence are longtime friends and collaborators across community organising, creative projects, and, more recently, music and events. Meeting at a festival over a decade ago, they bonded over a shared appreciation of black and alternative music histories, blues and soul, and a shared fascination with and care for the living world. Ben is a takatāpui organiser and facilitator who works as an educator in queer affirming care, and regionally in whale conservation research. Blake is an artist and academic working across performance, textiles and photography, exploring connections between queer histories and ecology.