Museum as a practice-based research device in art and design

Abstract

This text gives an account of the principles, the investigative process and of some of the results, obtained within the scope of the Art and Design Studies curricular unit, from the Visual Arts and Technologies course, at Lisbon’s Escola Superior de Educação.

As a working context we assumed the National Museum of Ethnology, having started our half-yearly project by asking the students the following departure questions: “What meanings are attributed to the Museum?” and “How can, or cannot, the Museum encourage or condition research in Art and Design?”. From our visit to the Museum space, and our following discussion sessions, in the classroom, as collective, issues emerged that informed the unfolding, maturing and conception of the projects developed by the students. Among all, we chose to bring those which took shape in the design circle, demonstratives of an approach where the object is a material cultural document, constituted and constituting cultural action.