As well as being a discoverer of talents and a persuasive agitator, the director of Lille 2004 is above all a man of concepts. Metamorphoses, Maison Folies, mondes paralleles, cite ideale, fetes et couleurs, anneaux de vitesse: Lille 2004 began around these key words which, in turn, led to an artistic programme and specific communications ideas for the European Capital of Culture. He communicated rapidly with artists and structures of the region to see these concepts taken on board. At the heart of these concepts lies the desire for modernity and transgression: veritable leitmotivs behind the career of this native of Valenciennes.

In the 1980s, he transformed repeatedly the town of Maubeuge (where he directs the Mange theatre and the Festival des Inattendus) into Shanghai and London, and placed the town in the midst of a science fiction tale. In 1993, he imported his modernity and taste for new technologies in the arts into the Maison des Arts et de la Culture Andre Malraux at Creteil (a suburb of Paris) by becoming its director. In 2005, Didier Fusillier is still the director of the Manege in Maubeuge and the M.A.C of Creteil. He is also working on plans for a biennial which will begin in Lille in 2006!