With “Fiesta”, Lille and its metropolis celebrate

"The forms of art have no other origin than celebration, from all times" : Martine Aubry quotes the writer Georges Bataille – in Lascaux or the Birth of Art (1955) – to claim this unifying theme of celebration, which she had chosen four years ago with Didier Fusillier , her long-time accomplice in the city's emblematic artistic event, at a time when the need to "party" was being strongly felt, in the wake of Covid-19. While the ^7th edition of Lille3000, entitled "Fiesta", has just opened for six months, the former has resigned from her mandate as mayor of Lille – "to make way for the new generation" before the 2006 municipal elections –, and the latter has taken up his new duties at the head of the Grand Palais in Paris.

This season, conceived as an "antidote to the ambient gloom" and the "fury of the world" , is therefore one of passing the baton. Jean-François Chougnet, the former director of the MuCEM in Marseille, has thus taken over the artistic direction of this event with its crazy logistics which had blossomed in the wake of Lille 2004, European Capital of Culture . An event which has, edition after edition, brought a breath of gentle madness across the city, from "Bombaysers de Lille" (2006) to "Europe XXL" (2009), from "Fantastic" (2012) to "Renaissance" (2015), from "Eldorado" (2019) to "Utopia" (2022). With, always, the aim of being both demanding and popular.

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