Cillín Johann Perera is an Australian photographer, entrepreneur and art collector who is best known for his "HomelessCEO" project. Between 2013 and 2017, Perera documented his travels by uploading a photo of every flight and each day on
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
.
The project encompassed more than 1000 images from dozens of countries and hundreds of flights and has been the subject of a touring exhibition.
Perera is the
chief executive officer (CEO) of companies in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, including Language Direct, an online
language teaching
Language education – the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language – is primarily a branch of applied linguistics, but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language education: ...
company, and Avilinga, a company offering translation for the aviation industry.
He is a collector and patron of
Australian Aboriginal art and is the founder of Australians for Overseas Representation.
Early life
Perera was born in London to an Irish mother and a Sri Lankan father, and grew up in
Melbourne, Australia. In 1994 he won the Young Achievement Australia "Young Victorian Business Person of the Year" award. In 1995, he went to the United States to study visual arts and cinema under scholarship at
Harvard University.
As a freshman, he started a non-profit company and a late-night show, ''Wide Awake with Cillin Perera''.
In 1997, Perera was assistant director of
Joshua Oppenheimer's ''The Entire History of the Louisiana Purchase,''
an experimental documentary that won several festival awards.
After college Perera became self-employed, founding Language Direct, an online
language teaching
Language education – the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language – is primarily a branch of applied linguistics, but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language education: ...
company, at the age of 27.
Homeless CEO
In July 2013,
Perera started the "HomelessCEO" project, as a way to express the nomadic lifestyle of the modern
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
.
Not spending more than four or five days in any one place,
Perera took 168 flights and traveled more than 200,000 miles in 2014.
As of February 2016, Perera has published more than 1000 images from dozens of countries and hundreds of flights.
Technique
HomelessCEO is shot entirely on Apple iPod and iPhone.
Perera's style puts a strong emphasis on
composition and
perspective, partly as a result of equipment limitations.
For flights, Perera frequently shoots the view from the passenger window; the project contains possibly the world's largest collection of "airplane porthole" shots.
Perera's other photographs show "haunting images of architecture, landscapes and urban settings mostly devoid of the human form."
He very rarely features people in his photos unless they contribute to the composition of the shot.
Exhibitions
* July 2015: Dreamspace Gallery, London
* February 2016: ACP Ventures, Singapore
* June–September 2016: AKH Contemporary, Vienna, Austria
* November 2017: Melbourne, Australia (tbd)
In an innovative pricing strategy, all
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
-published photographs are printed as uniques, and priced at $1 per "
like" as determined by their popularity on Instagram at the time of sale.
Other activities
Perera was the founder of
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
-based Language Direct, an online language teaching company established in 2004, and the CEO of
UAE-based Avilinga, a company offering translation for the aviation, industry established in 2010.
These companies have around 350 remote-working freelancers and clients on 5 continents.
Perera is involved in the support of
Australian Aboriginal art through his private collection as well as philanthropic activities in the field.
Private life
Before embracing a nomadic lifestyle, Perera lived in Germany and Switzerland, where he had an apartment in
Basel.
He has Australian, British and Irish passports,
and has been a resident of the
UAE since 2012.
His partner currently lives in
Turin.
He has collections of classic British cars (including
Rolls-Royce and
Lotus
Lotus may refer to:
Plants
*Lotus (plant), various botanical taxa commonly known as lotus, particularly:
** ''Lotus'' (genus), a genus of terrestrial plants in the family Fabaceae
**Lotus flower, a symbolically important aquatic Asian plant also ...
), and
Australian Aboriginal art.
References
External links
homelessCEO at InstagramhomelessCEO exhibition page at DreamSpace Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perera, Cillin
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
British emigrants to Australia
Australian photographers
New media artists
Harvard University alumni
Australian chief executives