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Réka Kinga Papp is a journalist and a comedian. Born in 1985 in Nyíregyháza, Hungary, Papp is an MA in media and communications, and also in Hungarian literature and linguistics; specialized as a media researcher.

Journalist

Papp serves as editor-in-chief of the online magazine Eurozine, based in Vienna. She is the anchor of Gagarin, the Eurozine podcast, as well as her personal project the comedy podcast Professzor Paprika.

Papp formerly co-hosted the satirical political youtube-show Slejm and appeared as a regular commentator on the public affairs programmes of commercial televisions ATV and HírTV. She was a recurring author of the political weekly HVG and a founding member of the opinion site Mérce.

Comedian

She performs her stand-up special in downtown Budapest at Spinoza Theater. In her latest one woman show, Papp talks grief, tractors and dialects, all from the blended perspectives of a class shifter, a newcomer intellectual who tries to hold on to their rural roots and wits. Her first standup special, Nimand premiered in 2017 at Stúdió K Theater, and discussed parenting, divorce, dating and demographics from a feminist perspective.

Papp was a member of the Budapest Anarchist Theater, cast for years in the comic play Multiple Orgasms. She was a regular of the weekly comedy show Heti Hetes on national tv.

Communication adviser

Founder of Green Spider Media Lab, specialized in reporting on NGOs and movements as well as planning their communication strategies. Among her partners are Greenpeace Hungary, the Hungarian Association of Conscious Consumers, Humusz Alliance, and others. Served as a communications officer at the Hungarian Association of Sex Workers in 2016 and of the Roma Education Fund in 2018. Her fields of specialization are CSR, public service communication, organizational structures and crisis communication.

Media researcher

Papp was a Milena Jesenksá Fellow at the Viennese Institute for Human Sciences in 2017 where she researched the Hungarian sex market and sex workers’ social circumstances. She published an elaborate series by the title Pussy Politics on the social history of obstetrics and the free birth movement in Hungary; also wrote on the matter for Eurozine. Papp researched West German students’ movements and leftist terrorism as a junior fellow at the Hungarian Institute of Political History.

Activist

A founder of the 2006 Students’ Network movement; speaker at the free press mass protest ‘Nem tetszik a rendszer‘ in 2011 as a representative of the students. Featured at a number of rallies and other demonstrative events as a free speech, free press and feminist activist.

To protest the founding of the paramilitary far-right organization Hungarian Guard she organized and performed with the Carpathian Commando Rebel Clown Army, appeared at a number of far-right events. As an activist of Our Treasure Is The Market group she performed chanson parodies to protest the local government; the mayor sued her for defamation, yet the case was later dropped after a solidarity protest in her defense.

Artist

The scandalous chansons were featured later as well; her take on Millions, Millions, Millions Slip Away was featured in Montrouge, Paris at the Jeune Création Européanne biannual, and also at a number of European venues. She performs at rallies and social events with her protest band Véletlen Blues Band. She is the singer of the jazz-infused comic ensemble Partvis Band with her permanent partner in music, pianist Kristóf Darvas.

Papp was the art director of the play Bánk Bán: ACT in 2016, an opera project for Radialsystem, Berlin.