This thesis adopts a primarily process-based methodology to put a museum in its place as a site of knowledge-making. It examines the practices of space which were productive of a government-funded (‘national’) museum in Edinburgh. Taking a spatial perspective, and recognising that place is both material and metaphorical, the thesis explores how the Museum’s material and intellectual architectures were produced over the period 1854-1939. The thesis is concerned to bring into focus the dynamic processes by which the Museum was in a continual state of becoming; a constellation of tangible and intangible objects constantly being produced and reproduced through mobility of objects, people and ideas. Its concern is to chart the flows through space which produced the Museum. The thesis comprises nine chapters. An introduction and a literature review are followed by chapters concerned, respectively, with the built space of the museum and with the people who worked there. A further three chapters consider the nature of that work and the practices of space which constituted the processes of collecting, displaying, and educating, whilst another focuses on visiting. The final chapter discusses how the analysis has constructed the museum as constituted through a complex diversity of material and metaphorical settings on a variety of geographical scales. This critical scrutiny of the museum has, in turn, brought to the fore the place of the Museum in contributing to civic and national identity. Through a case-study of a particular museum, the concern has been to explore how critical geographies of science may be applied to the examination of a museum. In particular the thesis examines how contextual concepts developed largely in conscribed sites such as laboratories apply to a public site such as a museum. The thesis suggests that the ordering terms ‘space’ and ‘place’, combined with a focus on practice and performance, may have more general application in constructing an historical geography of museums as sites of production and consumption of scientific knowledge.

Esta pesquisa, na área de poéticas visuais, desenvolve reflexões que surgiram pela prática do ateliê e pelos meus trabalhos produzidos no período de 2011 a 2014. A pintura, perfomance, instalação e o impresso foram meios que utilizei para estes trabalhos e que estão presentes nesta dissertação. Uma pequena experiência, ao qual chamei de Laboratório de brotos e podres, feita em 2012, iniciou um aprofundamento no estudo sobre os elementos domésticos, os perecíveis e a prática da observação das coisas do ateliê. Tal investigação foi desenvolvida percorrendo artistas que trabalham o broto, os elementos domésticos e a materialidade do barro, bem como autores que discutem a coisa, o objeto, a natureza-morta e a efemeridade e permanência das coisas. / This research, within the visual poetics field, develops reflections arosen from the studio practice and from my works in the period 2011-2014. Painting, performance, installation and print were procedures I used for these works and which are present in this master thesis. A small experiment, which I call Laboratório de brotos e podres, conduced in 2012, began a deepening in the study of domestic elements, perishables and the observation practice of studio things. Such investigation was developed covering artists that work with the sprout, the domestic elements, and the materiality of clay, as well as authors that discuss the thing, the object, still life and the ephemerality and permanence of things.

Esta pesquisa, na área de poéticas visuais, desenvolve reflexões que surgiram pela prática do ateliê e pelos meus trabalhos produzidos no período de 2011 a 2014. A pintura, perfomance, instalação e o impresso foram meios que utilizei para estes trabalhos e que estão presentes nesta dissertação. Uma pequena experiência, ao qual chamei de Laboratório de brotos e podres, feita em 2012, iniciou um aprofundamento no estudo sobre os elementos domésticos, os perecíveis e a prática da observação das coisas do ateliê. Tal investigação foi desenvolvida percorrendo artistas que trabalham o broto, os elementos domésticos e a materialidade do barro, bem como autores que discutem a coisa, o objeto, a natureza-morta e a efemeridade e permanência das coisas. / This research, within the visual poetics field, develops reflections arosen from the studio practice and from my works in the period 2011-2014. Painting, performance, installation and print were procedures I used for these works and which are present in this master thesis. A small experiment, which I call Laboratório de brotos e podres, conduced in 2012, began a deepening in the study of domestic elements, perishables and the observation practice of studio things. Such investigation was developed covering artists that work with the sprout, the domestic elements, and the materiality of clay, as well as authors that discuss the thing, the object, still life and the ephemerality and permanence of things.

Esta pesquisa, na área de poéticas visuais, desenvolve reflexões que surgiram pela prática do ateliê e pelos meus trabalhos produzidos no período de 2011 a 2014. A pintura, perfomance, instalação e o impresso foram meios que utilizei para estes trabalhos e que estão presentes nesta dissertação. Uma pequena experiência, ao qual chamei de Laboratório de brotos e podres, feita em 2012, iniciou um aprofundamento no estudo sobre os elementos domésticos, os perecíveis e a prática da observação das coisas do ateliê. Tal investigação foi desenvolvida percorrendo artistas que trabalham o broto, os elementos domésticos e a materialidade do barro, bem como autores que discutem a coisa, o objeto, a natureza-morta e a efemeridade e permanência das coisas. / This research, within the visual poetics field, develops reflections arosen from the studio practice and from my works in the period 2011-2014. Painting, performance, installation and print were procedures I used for these works and which are present in this master thesis. A small experiment, which I call Laboratório de brotos e podres, conduced in 2012, began a deepening in the study of domestic elements, perishables and the observation practice of studio things. Such investigation was developed covering artists that work with the sprout, the domestic elements, and the materiality of clay, as well as authors that discuss the thing, the object, still life and the ephemerality and permanence of things.