Next in our “Meet the Artist” series is the fabulous Oscar Lancaster!
Oscar smiling while wearing a giant puppet as teens look on outside the Guggenheim Museum.
Oscar Lancaster (he/him/el) is a teacher and cultural promoter with more than 15 years of experience working in arts and education in the public and private sectors in Mexico. Born and raised in Nogales, Sonora, Oscar is passionate about bringing arts and empathy programs to underserved youth. He has a Licenciada (BA equivalent) in Communication and a Diploma in Theater from the Universidad de Sonora. He has experience in Mexican state and municipal cultural and education institutions, over 10 years experience teaching middle and high school arts, sports, and English, and he founded and manages a nonprofit art association producing original theater for young people in Nogales.
We asked Oscar three questions about his work:
What is a memorable moment you have had on a Flying Leap Project?
Oscar and his students in Mexico, smiling and posing with a giant puppet head they built.
“It has to be, the first time that the kids from Nogales, Sonora and Nogales, Arizona who were participating in our pen pal programs, had the chance to meet from each side of the border fence for the first time. That was one of the one of the strongest and most emotional experiences that I have had. The second one has to be the chance that we had of having a at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where we talked with some teenagers that had multicultural backgrounds with migration. We talked about building bridges through these borders that sometimes we can't see, such as age, gender, culture and education, and things like that.”
What is a value that is important in your work?
Oscar demonstrating a puppet to young child.
“Something that I really value about teaching is not losing the ability to learn. You learn a lot from your students, especially if they are children or teenagers. I love learning from them about their capacity of wonder, passions, ingenuity, simplicity, enthusiasm and humility. In order to teach, you have to learn.”
What is something artistically that you are working on?
I'm really excited to see what Flying Leap and Más Allá del Muro or Beyond the Wall has to bring in these future years to come!