Introducing
Perran Costi

Transdisciplinary
Experience

Perran works at the epicentre of Creative, Cultural and Environmental practice by seeing the big picture and all the parts that make up the whole. With over two decades of transdisciplinary experience at the intersection of Art, Design, Culture, Community, Events, Education, Sustainability and Social Enterprise.
Perran Costi is a critical thinker who joins the dots that others don’t see to create things of lasting originality, by turning his dreams and the dreams of others into reality, which in turn encourages creative culture to thrive in all forms.
Perran utilises his transdisciplinary practice through the creation, management, production and promotion of small to large scale artworks, enterprise, events, exhibitions, performances, workshops, community engagement, artist’s initiatives, campaigns, and creative projects.

awards &
Achievemenets

Perran has a proven track record of successfully delivering outstanding creations and projects of varying sizes and complexity that are of an award-winning international standard, this has allowed him to become an internationally acclaimed and sought after creative with his unique talents and experience placing him at the zeitgeist of human-centred creative practice.
Perran has received glowing reviews, prestigious awards, exhibited regularly and produced many successful projects in locations including Tokyo, Wakayama, London, New York, LA, Houston, Shanghai, Mexico, Brussels, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Singapore, Toronto, Seattle, Hamburg, Milan, and across Australia in more than 20 locations.

Clients & Collaborators

Reviews & Interviews

Review By Design Local On Skyboxes

Design Local

Let’s get one thing straight: Perran Costi Skyboxes are not regular art. This is a concept that takes the theme of depiction and gives it a new lease of life. Skyboxes are beautiful installations, sculptures even, that are at once decorative and thought provoking, and they are among some of the most gloriously original artwork in the world today.

Perran Costi tells a story of a near death experience he went through after suffering an accident, and it is perhaps due to this that his work is simply full of life. Even in stillness the Skyboxes are invigorating and fresh, and there is a sense of complete originality in these wonderful works of art.

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Costi does not limit himself to one medium – indeed, he used a wide range of audio-visual mediums in his work – and the Skyboxes are designed to entrance and inspire. That they do, without fail, is a testament to Perran Costi’s amazing creativity.

With work exhibited across the world he ranks as one of the most important Australian artists of the moment, and he has recently been offered shows of his work in the prestigious cities of New York and London, a major step forward for an artist based in Australia.


I love the Skyboxes and see them as a combination of sculpture and image, a clever combination that somehow brings everything together in perfect harmony. This is very peaceful work, no matter the image presented, and I am quite certain that we will be hearing a great deal more about Perran Costi in the years to come.

Interview With Canvas Project On Case Study

Case Study
Interview with
Canvas Project

Case Study came to Underbelly Arts to create their own unique society. Colonizing with only what they could carry with them in suitcases, this social experiment became an amazing artistic interpretation of necessity.

Article By Ben Connor, Artspace About Perran

Ben Conner
ArtSpace, Rex
Inflight Magazine

“In his first year (of Uni, Perran) had a dream in which he envisioned his artwork at an exhibition. ‘I wish I’d thought of that,’ he mused, before waking and realising that he had. His almost transcendental skyboxes were the result: exquisitely shot photographs with foreground, middleground and background extracted, then printed onto three separate glass panels enclosed in a wooden box and illuminated from behind.
He made his first sale that year at the university’s spring fair. Then, seeing Perran’s artwork, the purchaser’s interior designer hired him to design a skybox feature wall for the renovation of his client’s luxury premises overlooking Tamarama Beach. And things have only escalated from there.”

Article In the The Daily Telegraph On Case Study

Victoria Hannaford,
The Daily Telegraph

What would you do if you could start a new society from scratch?
Part of Underbelly Arts 2011, Case Study is a work-in-progress by six artists who have decamped to Cockatoo Island. Keen to begin a new strand of civilisation, Perran and his new settlers decided to put a few rules in place before they could proceed; the first was they could only take one trip, taking only what they could fit into suitcases.
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“We packed up all the stuff we could out of our artist studios, and then documented what we brought with us,” he says. “It’s a resource list, because every society has a finite amount of resources until they figure out what they can trade or they explore and find more.”

Cockatoo Island has a rich history of its own and its uses have changed over time – it’s been everything from a colonial prison to industrial school, and most recently a shipyard. Perran says it’s a prime location to begin again. “Everyone who’s come to Australia – except for the Aborigines – came here with whatever they could carry to start a new life,” he says.

“They’ve come with their history, but they’ve also come to this new land with all of these ideas of a grand new society, starting from scratch with what they could carry.”

The six founding members of the society bring with them a wide range of skills, which Perran says was ideal for the project.

“When you’re starting a new society, you need a diverse pool of people. There’s a prosthetic artist, Damian Martin; Emily McDaniel, who’s a sound artist with an Aboriginal background and she works at MCA and the Art Gallery Of NSW; Jesse Cox, a sculptor with a history degree; Justin Harvey who lectures at UTS in new media and Adam Parsons, a landscape architect.”

Newcomers will also be welcomed into the society during the festival. “We’re thinking of setting up a border control, signing people in with visas, taking fingerprints and checking for fruit and veg,” Perran says.

While the project hasn’t turned Lord Of The Flies just yet, Perran says part of the appeal is nobody knows what will happen. “We don’t know what it will mean.”

The Underbelly Arts Festival features more than 150 musicians, dancers and performers showing their work on Cockatoo Island.

Interview with Alan Giddy, UNSW COFA And Perran

UNSW COFA ANNUAL

COFA Annual 2009 Exhibition Sculpture Highlights Alan Giddy, COFA lecturer, and Director of the Environmental Research Institute for Art, takes us on a guided tour of some of the best sculpture works from the 2009 COFA Annual Exhibition

Alan’s vibrant commentary takes us through the inspiration, meaning and impact of the sculpture and installation works against the backdrop of the excitement of the opening night 

Play Video

Review by Alex Christopher, Artgaze On Personal Space

Alex Christopher,
Artgaze Magazine

Pop-Up Momentum Temporary and Short Term Creative Spaces
Perran Costi’s Personal Space exhibition was recently part of this exciting version of the project. Personal Space, on Nurses’ Walk, had ceiling to floor window coverage onto the street. Inside was a rich, calming environment though I found myself at first not sure if I’d walked into a shop, native botanical wonderland, science lab, artist’s studio or gallery. It was a space you could easily pass much time in, combing over all the components with relish. You could touch, feel, see, hear and smell the exhibition.

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After this Rocks visit I spent some time thinking about Costi’s works and how they themselves, with references to urban life, city spaces and the environment, related to the Renew and Pop-Up philosophy overall. Baggage – Land Grab is a work that for me illustrates the endeavour.

 

In late 2012, Perran transformed a small shop in Sydney’s historic Rocks district into a vibrant artistic space. Perran’s Personal Space explored the ways by which Sydneysiders living hectic lives take time out to de-stress, breath and just be.

 

Featuring a brown vintage, leather suitcase and opened to bare its insides, the lower half is filled with lush green grass. The upper lid is a screen filled with bright blue sky and happy skipping clouds. The pieces spoke of history and reminded that spaces retain memory yet are open to hold something new; pointing to the hope and the new life that comes from the courage to re-write and innovate.

 

Costi’s exhibition and the Pop-Up project inspire new horizons for old spaces, if only for a blink.

Review by Naomi Gall, NEAR AND THE ELSEWHERE On Case Study

Naomi Gall,
The Near And The Elsewhere

The most impressive installations and perhaps the most intensive process at Underbelly Arts was Case Study in which six artists — Perran Costi, Jesse Cox, Emily McDaniel, Adam Parsons, Damian Martin and Justin Harvey — moved to the island for the 16-day lab, taking with them only a suitcase.
If there were any Survivor-style power plays during the development the final installation was a picture of harmonious communal living.
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A series of makeshift huts and lean-tos were scattered around an old workshop, each with bedding, curtains, found objects and text curios. Some hummed with quiet sound installations and most glowed hauntingly with projected stills and videos.

 

Plant and moss specimens from around the island adorned surfaces like miniature gardens and small assemblages were to be found in nearly every crevice. Exploring issues of inhabitation, colonisation and migration, Case Study offered a wabi-sabi micro-environment of wonderful intricacy.

Review by Naomi Gall, NEAR AND THE ELSEWHERE On Personal Space

Naomi Gall,
The Near And The Elsewhere

Very rarely do I see an artwork that literally makes me stop in my tracks.
Perran Costi’s work Personal Space, is fantastic. The large water feature is a sculptural wonder that has to be viewed from all angles. Costi incorporates found and everyday objects into his work and there is a real sense here that the work itself is alive.
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