Echoes & Reverberations: Everyone Is an Artist & Engineer™ is a traveling exhibition that traces how Black communities across the African Diaspora have shared knowledge for more than 400 years through pattern, geometry, quilt codes, and expressive arts using reused and found materials. 

From ancestral fractals and coded textile systems to contemporary works produced through C-STEM, the exhibition highlights a living lineage of innovation—where cultural expression, mathematical thinking, and material practice converge—and its enduring influence on today’s technological and creative landscape.

“When we say everyone is an artist and an engineer, we are naming a truth carried through Black communities for generations. C-STEM helps students recognize that creativity, communication, and problem-solving are not separate skills, but interconnected ways of thinking—tools for understanding the world and shaping their future.” 

— Dr. Reagan Flowers, Founder, C-STEM Teacher and Student Support Services

About C-STEM

C-STEM Teacher and Student Support Services is a Houston-based nonprofit organization founded by Dr. Reagan Flowers and grounded in the belief that Everyone is an Artist and an Engineer™. For more than two decades, C-STEM has advanced project-based learning that integrates communication, STEM, and the arts—reaching over 200,000 students and educators nationwide through its programs. 

C-STEM’s work builds on a long tradition of Black knowledge systems that emphasize collaboration, iteration, and making as essential tools for learning. Through robotics, engineering challenges, and interdisciplinary projects, C-STEM formalizes ways of thinking that have existed across the African Diaspora for generations. 

The works presented in this exhibition are produced through C-STEM programs and artistic collaborations. They reflect how these historical systems continue to shape education, creativity, and future-building today.

CHECK OUT OUR CATALOG

Kid/Juvenile

• Black Women in Science: A Black History Book for Kids by Kimberly Brown Pellum
• Black Inventors: 15 Inventors that Changed the World by Kathy Trusty
• Buzzing with Questions: The Inquisitive Mind of Charles Henry Turner by Janice N. Harrington
• African American Scientists and Inventors by Tish Davidson
• What Color is My World?: How African-American Inventors Changed the Way We Live by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
• African American Quilting: The Warmth of Tradition by Sule Greg Wilson
• The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom by Bettye Stroud
• Wake Up Our Souls: A Celebration of Black American Artists by Tonya Bolden
• Whoosh!: Lonnie Johnson's Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions by Chris Barton
• One Step Further: My Story of Math, the Moon, and a Life-Long Mission by Katherine G. Johnson

Adult

• Brooklyn on My Mind: Black Visual Artists from the WPA to the Present by Myrah Brown Green
• Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
• An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and Slavery by Rachel May
• Hidden in Plain View: The Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad by Jacqueline Tobin
• Black Art: A Cultural History by Richard J. Powell
• The Sugar Camp Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini
• Chasing Space: An Astronaut's Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances by Leland Melvin
• The Underground Railroad: A Novel by Colson Whitehead
• Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights by Robert Parris Moses

Library of Things

• Crafts & Hobbies: Sumi-e
• Crafts & Hobbies: Yarn Winding
• Crafts & Hobbies: Watercolor Markers
• Crafts & Hobbies: Wood Carving
• Crafts & Hobbies: Rubbing Plates - Abstract
• Crafts & Hobbies: Rubbing Plates - Floral
• Discovery Kit: Magna-tiles
• Discovery Kit: Stop Motion Animation
• Discovery Kit: Osmo
• Discovery Kit: Robot Mouse
• Discovery Kit: Owl Pellet Lab
• Discovery Kit: Ozobot Evo
• Discovery Kit: Cubelets
• Discovery Kit: Colors
• Discovery Kit: Design Studio
• Discovery Kit: Coding Critters: Blazer the Dragon
• TI-84 Plus CE 10-Digit Graphing Calculator

• Presented by C-STEM, Inc.
• Curated by Southern Polymath Creative Consulting, LLC (SPCC) | Seba R. Suber, Lead Curator & Kara Crowley, Co-Curator
• Artists: Dr. Reagan Flowers, Mathieu JN Baptiste, Darrell Williams, Phil Denson
• Research Collaboration: Osinachi Immaculeta Okafor, PhD Student, History of Art (HART)
• Partnership: The Centre for African and African American Studies (CAAAS), Rice University
• Supported by City of Houston, Houston Public Library, Houston Public Library Foundation, Houston Arts Alliance, 400 Years of African American History Commission, Education Consulting Services, LLC