Artist-in-Residence Risa Puno: Learning to Resolve Rage with Play

In our latest exhibition, interactive artist Risa Puno takes on rage in a "fun" way: through games. Viewers are invited to explore how they might react to various micro-aggressions, and perhaps learn a little something about themselves. We had the chance to talk to Risa about how her parents inspired her, the Philippine concept of kapwa, and her recent obsession with houseplants.

Tell me a little about your childhood and background. Where did you grow up?

My family immigrated from the Philippines, and I grew up in Louisville, KY. I didn't grow up with any artists in my family but like a "good" Asian kid, I was supposed to be a doctor. In fact I was in the eight-year med program at Brown. 

That program lets you major in anything you want because they encourage their students to be well-rounded. I didn’t get to take art in high school because I was too busy doubling up on math and science, so I was like, "Cool, I'm going to be an art major." They should never let you do that because so many of us end up falling in love with other fields. I had to have a hard conversation with Dr. Mom and Dr. Dad.

What was their reaction?

They were concerned. My little brother still calls it my “fall from my grace.” But now they're very supportive. They're my biggest fans. 

How did your interest in art develop?

I was always a creative kid, even if I didn't realize art could be a real career. Something that alive people could pursue. I always loved making things and building things and drawing things.

Plus, innovation and creative problem-solving runs in my family. My dad, in addition to being a spine surgeon, has 90 U.S. and international patents for spinal instrumentation. He invented the world's first polyaxial pedicle screw [used for connecting vertebrae to rods in spinal surgery]. When we were kids, he was always sketching ideas on napkins. He taught me how to build things, how things work. He believes that things can always be better, and that if he's having a hard time using something, maybe others are too. He's where I got my spatial reasoning skills.

From my mom, I get my project management and organization skills, as well as my ability to make stuff happen. She has always been the one who is on top of everything, and makes sure we all don’t fall apart. She normalized learning new practical skills every single day, and she continues to do so, even at 70 years old! What I learned from my parents is still expressed in my practice even if they're not artists.

In Filipino culture, there's the concept of kapwa. It means shared identity or shared humanity. It means I have a moral imperative to care for you the way I would care for myself. I actually didn't know the word until I was an adult. I just knew it as a way of being. You can see it in the way Filipinos conduct themselves. The generosity my parents have for others — it’s their legacy of care. It's something I strive to incorporate into everything I do, including my work.

Tell us about your exhibition with Pearl River Mart.

The work I’m showing at Pearl River Mart is from my Anatomy of Rage series — a constellation of projects designed to help people be curious about rage in community with others.

For me, rage is an emotion that I wasn't taught to acknowledge, let alone express. Sometimes, instead of anger, it initially reads as confusion and frustration to me. And often, my gut reaction is to appease the person who's triggering the rage. To fawn. Or I'll freeze and do nothing to change the situation. But I've been learning to assert myself, to confront what's going on. I actually find it easier to do that on the behalf of others rather than myself.

The Pearl River Mart gallery is an intimate space that's rooted in community which makes it the perfect place to continue to explore this material. For my Unresolved solo exhibition, I plan to install THE WHEEL OF RECKONING AND RAGE, a double-sided interactive sculpture featuring two oversized game show-style wheels. One of the wheels offers questions about how you might process rage internally, asking whether you validate or even recognize your rage when it’s first triggered. The wheel on the other side asks about how you might react outwardly to rage triggers, including how your reactions might be shaped by social context or expectations. 

I've been iterating on the Unresolved Rage Game since 2022. I originally developed it at the Soho Rep Writer Director Lab. Now it's become this whole other thing and has spawned all these other projects. It's now under an umbrella of projects called The Anatomy of Rage.

It's a collective storytelling experience inspired by tabletop role playing games. The most famous is Dungeons & Dragons. Mine deals with modern micro-aggressions and is geared to serving Asian women and femmes, helping us explore, unpack, and be curious about rage. And doing that in a community setting.

In the game, fight, flee, freeze, and fawn are the four external reactions to rage triggers. I used the language of trauma responses. Micro-aggressions do inflict everyday trauma. Playing the game is a raw, cringe-worthy experience, but it's also weirdly fun. You and the other players are in it together. Playing is very vulnerable but it's being witnessed by people who understand it since they're playing too.

Over the course of the exhibition, I plan on organizing other ways to explore rage together in the gallery, including: workshops and play tests of the latest version of Unresolved Rage Game specifically for Asian women and femmes. It will be a way to explore rage together.

Something else I'm planning for the show are what I'm calling Good Asian Girl merit badges. They’re like Girl Scout merit badges but instead of being awarded for skills related to nature or sewing, it would be for coping mechanisms, some good, some not so good. They could be called Cringe Coddle, Stoic Lotus, or Hard Pass. They're all useful but the cost of each is different. For instance, they might use a lot of energy but preserve confidence. It's a game of resource management. Those resources are energy, confidence, acceptability, and rage. 

I would like to see more collaborative play between the players. I think collective rage expressed in solidarity with others can be healing. It can spur collective action. 

What do you for inspiration or to re-energize?

Something I do a lot is play. It's tricky because as someone who works a lot on games, it often feels like work. Sometimes I think I'm playing, but when I find a game that's inspiring, I start picking it apart and I have my work hat back on. 

There's a TED talk about the seven kinds of rest. I'm not good at getting rest. I'm not a good sleeper. But there are other kinds of rest. Mental rest for instance. For some it's zoning out. I get mental rest by giving my brain something to chew on, like a puzzle or low stakes crafting.

There's social rest, which is being around people you feel comfortable being your authentic self with. There's emotional rest, which is not having to hold back on the emotions you're having. Spiritual rest is connecting with something larger than yourself. For me figuring out what kind of rest I need at the moment — that's how I recharge.

Is there anything you’re obsessed with right now?

I became a new plant parent this year. I've been a little obsessed learning about that. Compared to actual real plant people, I don't know very much.

I got some seeds at the Cha Cha Festival. An artist was doing something with nasturtium. I put the seeds in dirt. You were supposed to use the seeds to meditate on your hopes and dreams, and water them twice a day. At first nothing happened. I was like, Oh my God, my hopes and dreams are dead. A week later I screamed from the living room, and my partner was like, "What's happening?" It had popped up. Then before long, we had four of them. 

I thought, What are we going to with these? Turns out you're supposed to thin them out. You're supposed to cut them. Cutting off our hopes and our dreams!

It turns out you can eat them. So I decided, Okay, we'll eat the extra hopes and dreams. I ate two of them. They were very, very spicy. More peppery than arugula. I kept one plant, which I called hope, and put the other, which I call dreams, in some dirt. That was like the bonus plant. Hope ended up producing beautiful orange flowers. Dreams turned out to be very scraggly and made all these small blooms but they never opened all the way. Hope always made one or two beautiful orange bloom at a time, which always opened. I don't know if it's because one grew from a seed and one was cut off, but it's interesting how the two plants have such different personalities. 

I don't understand why plants do what they do. Why did my snake plant start forming five pups all of a sudden? How does it know it has room in its new pot? I like that plants are so responsive. More responsive than I ever expected them to be.

Do you have a favorite memory of Pearl River? A favorite item or product from there? 

You all are a staple. Just browsing is the best. Seeing the things that you didn't know you wanted. The yummiest thing I had recently from Pearl River Mart were salmon skin chips with salted egg. I brought it to a work meeting, and everyone ate them all. I only got a little bit. It was so good.

Honestly I had that fear growing up: showing up to the lunchroom with stinky food. I showed up at this meeting and I had stinky Asian food. Then everyone ate it and I was sad because I didn't have anymore. [Laughs]

I like making public art is because it feels like the work becomes a part of people's everyday lives. The exciting thing for me about showing at Pearl River Mart is that it feels like it's part of everyday life. You go to Pearl River Mart as part of your everyday life — running errands or as a tourist — but then you see this gallery and get this art experience. It's exciting to me. The idea that you can stumble upon this as an everyday space as well as as art space. I also love the deep ties to the community that Pearl River has, especially for this project. This project needs that.

UNRESOLVED: A PLAYABLE ARCHIVE OF RAGE AND RECKONING is on view from Nov. 13, 2025 to Jan. 31, 2026. Join us for the opening reception on Nov. 13 from 6 to 8 PM. Attendance is free but registration is appreciated.