The 97% project was created as part of the diploma thesis of the Photography School at the Academy of Photography in Krakow. It was realized under the supervision of Wojciech Wilczyk.
This project contains a series of photographs depicting billboards and posters of the government’s information campaign summarizing the results of nationwide consultations in Hungary.
In October 2022, the Hungarian government announced a new (twelfth) national consultation: “Seven questions on Brussels sanctions”. “Brussels sanctions” meant the sanctions packages against Russia agreed and accepted by all EU members (including the Hungarian government). The first package was agreed in February 2022, with subsequent packages in the following months.
“Seven Questions” asked people of their opinion about sanctions on the supply of oil, gas, raw materials, nuclear fuel elements and whether the Paks II investment (planned expansion of an existing nuclear power plant) should also be subject to sanctions. The last two questions concerned sanctions that restrict tourism and those that increase food prices.
The results were announced in mid-January 2023. The government declared that 1,389,000 Hungarians took part in the consultations of whom 97 percent rejects the sanctions.
The opposition pointed out that even if according to the government 97 percent Hungarians rejects the Brussels sanctions, this applies only to that 17.5 percent (i.e. approximately 1.4 million Hungarians out of 7.7 million eligible people) who returned the survey or completed it online. Moreover, the nationwide consultation does not meet any democratic criteria: the collection and counting of responses is not controlled by any independent organization, and the responses have no binding force.
The costs of nationwide consultations on the Brussels sanctions have been published on the official government website. According to the presented document, the technical costs of the consultations totaled just over HUF 2.7 billion (this amount includes: collecting materials, costs of envelopes and delivering them, costs of printing the Prime Minister’s letter, the questionnaire itself and the accompanying statement). The above price does not include marketing and advertising of the consultation on billboards, television, the Internet and in the press. This amount is still not available. In February 2023, independent journalists estimated that the twelfth national consultation had so far cost around ten billion forints.
In the second half of January 2023, as part of the government information campaign, new billboards appeared on the streets: “Hungarians have decided: 97% NO to sanctions.”
Huge billboards were usually placed along large streets or on the outskirts of cities, while the city center was dominated by smaller posters hung on advertising poles or public transport stops. Project 97% tries to capture the aesthetic side of the campaign (or lack thereof); billboards and posters hung for weeks (or even months) and became an inseparable element of the city’s landscape. They occupied the visual space. Some of them have degraded due to weather conditions or human activity.
