“Au coeur de Mai 68”:
Au coeur de Internationalisation at Home

By Tiffany Ko

Parallel lines that do not meet in reality can converge at the vanishing point on a photograph. This article captures how “Au coeur de Mai 68” (In the heart of May 68), a photo exhibition at HKBU commemorating the unforgettable May in France in 1968, brought diverse contributors, participants, and content into a value-adding convergence that exemplified internationalisation at home.

A Remarkable Exhibition at HKBU
The photo exhibition “Au coeur de Mai 68” is initially a project developed by the Institut Français to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Mai 68 event that had a lasting impact on French society. With the glamour of 43 unpublished photographs taken by renowned French photographer Philippe Gras during the riotous May of 1968, the exhibition had been curated in more than a hundred places in France and across the world in 2018. Thanks to the effort of HKBU’s International Office, the Hong Kong Association for European Studies (HKAES), as well as support from the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong and Macau and CoP – ITL, it was on display at Lam Woo International Centre in HKBU from 6 to 30 November 2018.

The HKBU photo exhibition commenced with an opening ceremony hosted by HKBU students. We were delighted to have distinguished representatives — Dr. Albert Chau (Vice-President, Teaching and Learning, HKBU), Mrs. Paule Ignatio (Deputy Consul General of France in Hong Kong and Macau), Dr. Kenneth Chan (President, HKAES), and Dr. Emilie Tran (Assistant Professor and Course Coordinator for the European Studies Programme – French Stream, HKBU) — to deliver welcoming speeches to us. They appreciated the long-term organisational collaboration which blessed generations of students in Hong Kong and France. More significantly, they underlined how a refreshing look at the legacy of May 68 could offer educators and students a handle on understanding France better, reflecting on globalisation and the internationalisation of the curriculum.

The Stunning Photographs and Beyond
Besides the photo exhibition, two programmes were delivered to enhance the attendants’ understanding of the historical event: (1) a seminar entitled “What happened in May 68 in France? Was it a French Cultural Revolution?” by Professor Michel Bonnin on 6 November 2018 and (2) a special screening of documentary feature “Mai 68, Un étrange printemps” (May 68: A strange spring) directed by Dominique Beaux on 21 November 2018.

As a student of Paris Nanterre University in 1968—the cradle of the student rebellion—Professor Bonnin drew on his dual identity as an eye-witness and a historian to give audience a personal/scholarly account of the historical event intertwining with wit and facts. The first-hand encounters of Professor Bonnin in the event supplemented Gras’s photos with a different intellectual perspectives. Moreover, the initiation of a comparison between May 68 and the Cultural Revolution in China (1967-1977) further provided the Chinese and Hong Kong attendants with a sense of affinity to the event that took place far from home, far in time.

If Professor Bonnin’s seminar enriched the exhibition by reinvestigating May 68 with an alternative lens, the screening of “Mai 68, Un étrange printemps” made the exhibition experience complete by enabling a juxtaposition of narratives from two opposing parties. While Gras’s photography visualised, by large, upheavals on the streets, campuses and cultural sites of Paris, Beaux’s movie documented the point of view of the law and decision makers at the time of chaos, from the Police Commissioner, entrepreneurs, military personnel, to disillusioned Communist reactionaries. As the director constantly challenged his interviewees on screen with precise chronology and archive images, the film affirmed how the so-called truth of May 68 was actually a conjecture of diverse and fragile human experiences.

The exquisite photo exhibition, the scholarly seminar and the documentary film show, in sum, play an important part in the reconstruction of May 68, offering different but complementary perspectives. By inviting people to share the cultural memories that stemmed from the event across time and space, the “Au coeur de Mai 68” series doubtlessly revealed the secret recipe for an authentic, comprehensive and fluid learning experience that moved HKBU closer to the heart of internationalisation at home.

Special remarks: The Y-I, Y-II and Y-IV students in the European French Stream programme have reviewed and discussed May 68 from various perspectives in their French language classes (FREN1008 & FREN2008) as well as their major courses (POLS2205 & EURO4015). Rather than being one extracurricular component, the curriculum had incorporated the topical study on May 68, and the outside-of-the classroom activities (exhibition, seminar and documentary film show) into its course content.