“After five years of digital exchanges connecting artists across six continents, Call and Response went physical for the first time.

In October 2025, Shoebox Arts helmed by the extraordinary Kristine Schomocker   paired 190 artists to create collaborative books together. Four months later, approximately 90 unique collaborative works have been created: oracle decks, teabag weavings, painted photographs, sculptural volumes, accordion books, visual puzzles and more.

Each book represents a creative conversation between two artists/humans/makers. Participating artists have navigated time zones, shipping logistics, language barriers, and completely different creative approaches to make something neither could create alone”

“This is Call and Response at its core: connection, radical trust, real collaboration.
This is collaboration without permission. Connection without barriers. Artists proving quality work doesn’t require institutional blessing—just willingness to make something with another.” — Kristine Shoemaker
A project of @shoeboxarts.la
Exhibition: @callandresponseart

“When we embarked on this project together, it felt like a fortuitous pairing. We first met on social media several years ago and shared studio visits in the past, during which we discussed the formal similarities in our work, as well as our commitment to a deeply material practice and content that helps reframe human experience and perception. After a couple of Zoom discussions, our instinct was to combine Debra’s sculptural book forms with Michelle’s photographic collage images, creating a three-dimensional space that both tells a story and challenges our understanding of what a book can be. The viewer is invited to travel “In the Woods” of their own psyche, paradoxically reaching for enlightenment through traversing darkness.” — Debra Disman and Michelle Robinson, Co-creators of “In the Woods”