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About this website

This website has digitized part of the personal archive kept by Mr. Augustine Chiu-yu Mok about the work he has done with his friends of The 1970's syndicate and Asian People's Theatre practitioners. The majority of the materials are kept by Mok, and the rest are collected from members of The 70's.

The 70's syndicate consisted of a group of young Hong Kong social activists who have been influential on the cultural, social and political activism scene in Hong Kong since the late 1960s. Ideologically, they aligned themselves with the Left although there were internal differences in the theoretical slants adopted. They were best known for The 70's Biweekly that they published, but their methods of engaging in social action were in fact very varied. Besides publishing journals, they also organised and participated in protests and film screenings, translated and published books, built international and local activist networks, and ran a bookshop. This archive has collected some of these publications and other documents such as personal letters and notes, minutes of meetings, etc., in order to provide a comprehensive view of their activism.

After the syndicate disbanded in the late 1970s, Augustine Chiu-yu Mok continued his activism through the creative practice of theatre. Some members of The 70's remained close collaborators with him, and he also created new collaborations with the practitioners of Asian People's Theatre. His works are celebrated for their anti-colonial, anti-nationalist and internationalist vision of social justice and equality.

This archive is constructed to facilitate research on Hong Kong cultural activism from the 1970s onward. Some books published by The 70's and their fraternal organisations are collected in the HKBU Library. These materials have formed the basis of the book Hong Kong's Third Way: Mok Chiu-yu's Anarchist People's Theatre (in Chinese), which is also collected in the HKBU Library.