Thandi Loewenson wins the 2024 Wheelwright Prize with 'Black Papers: Beyond the Politics of Land, Towards African Policies of Earth & Air'

The Harvard Graduate School of Design just announced this year's winning proposal for the coveted Wheelwright Prize, featuring an examination of colonial systems and racial capitalism from the UK-based Zimbabwe-born researcher Thandi Loewenson. 

The $100,000 award is provided annually with the chance to give a lecture at the GSD and be published in one of five different school publications. Loewenson will have the chance to uncover "how we get free" through a series of what she calls "Black Papers," breaking down the "entanglement of Earth and Air" in the endemic landscape of seven different countries. The prize money supports her study of "Outer Space," which includes examining aerial land surveying techniques as well as the mining of precious metals used in smartphone devices and unwittingly underwriting a system of "digital dispossession" worldwide.

Loewenson, currently a senior tutor at the Royal College of Art, also holds a PhD from the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture. 

"This research presents a radical shift: Developing a new epistemic framework and a series of open access, creatively reimagined policy proposals — the Black Papers — in which earth and air are not distinct but rather concomitant terrains through which racialization and exploitation are forged on the continent, and through which they will be fought," Lowenson said. "The Wheelwright Prize is uniquely placed to support such ambitious inquiry, enabling me to bring together seemingly disparate yet closely bound parts of our planet, and agitate for a more just and flourishing world."

Loewenson follows 2023 winner Jingru (Cyan) Cheng and was selected over shortlist finalists Meriem Chabani, Nathan Friedman, and Ryan Roark by a jury that included K. Michael Hays, Noura Al-Sayeh, Jennifer Newsom, Dean Sarah M. Whiting, John Peterson, and Chris Cornelius.