lille3000 - le voyage continue

In 2004, Lille became the European Capital of Culture. lille2004 drew its strength from the artists and residents who transformed the city for the duration of one year. Strong signs remain present in the collective memory as in reality: the Metamorphoses, Parallel Worlds, the maisons Folie, the festivities and a wonderful enthusiasm. This extraordinary event genuinely and profoundly changed the image of the City of Lille and the Euroregion. lille2004 revealed the tremendous creative energy of its territory.

lille3000 is taking this dynamic even further. As a gateway to the future, lille3000 proposes to explore the richness and complexities of tomorrow’s world by investigating its many paths of development. Neither festival nor biennale, lille3000 invites us to discover cultures through the most contemporary artists from near and afar, while sharing its events with the greatest possible number in the heart of the city.

lille3000 investigates multiple fields: the economy and new technologies, the art of living in the city and the construction of the city of tomorrow, spirituality, and more generally questions of society and civilization.

This openness to other worlds is something lille3000 experienced intensely in autumn 2006 with its first thematic edition: Lille Bombaysers. India and its many facets at the intersection of art and modernity were at the heart of this first major event: metamorphoses, artists’ installations, exhibitions, films, shows and a parade, based around Bangalore, Mumbai, Brick Lane ...

lille3000 availed of the opportunity to present, in Lille, emblematic works belonging to one of the world’s most important collectors of contemporary art: François Pinault. In 2007, the exhibition Passage of Time at the Tripostal marked the beginning of a new phase for Lille, one oriented towards modes of creation and dissemination that are evolving with new networks.

In 2010, lille3000 presented The Silk Road at the Tripostal, from 20 October 2010 to 23 January 2011, an exhibition of major pieces from the Saatchi Gallery in London; in the lille3000 spirit, this event strongly combines popular culture and respect for the works of human genius in their teeming diversity.

For its second thematic edition, Europe XXL, lille3000 went in search of a new continent, that of a transfigured Europe 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. For four months, through a series of major exhibitions, supercharged Midi-Midis, radical shows and new venues, Lille and the Eurodistrict set their watches to the time of new East, from vibrant Berlin to Kazakhstan.

Another recurring lille3000 theme: multiple visions of the future and the avant-garde. At the heart of this theme, the Futurotextiles exhibition addresses these questions in an unusual way by combining art and science. Following its success in Lille (2006), Istanbul (2007) or Kortrijk (2008), it toured to Bangkok, Casablanca and Jakarta in 2009 and 2010. After a stopover in the Lille Europe Pavilion during the Expo 2010 in Shanghai, an updated version of Futurotextiles began a new tour: a two-year journey taking in Barcelona and Amsterdam, Cordoba, Prato, Ronse and Tourcoing.

2011 already promises to be a dynamic year full of discovery: spring events once again at the Gare Saint Sauveur from April onwards, with the science fiction exhibition Paranoia and many festive and friendly events presented in connection with numerous cultural structures in the metropolitan area. Then, from October, lille3000 continues with its series of major collectors with an original exhibition at the Tripostal, French Collector, devoted to French public collections, in partnership with the Centre National des Arts Plastiques.
Finally, for 2012, lille3000 is concocting a new thematic recipe, an opportunity to traverse the real against a background of strangeness, with a fully intriguing programme... Fantastic.

From lille2004 to lille3000, the journey continues ...