This thesis is a qualitative case study of the socio-material production of an art exhibition and its publics. It is based on a year-long ethnographic and filmic study of 'In the Peaceful Dome', an exhibition in 2017 at Bluecoat, Liverpool's centre for the contemporary arts, supported by a CASE studentship from the Economic and Social Research Council. Contributing to the 'new' sociology of art, it reads Howard Becker's Art Worlds alongside the theoretical work of Tim Ingold to conduct a sociology of art stemming from the interactions and entanglements of materials and practice. This provides an analytical framework that presents the art world as a meshwork. Studying the production of In the Peaceful Dome as a meshwork is achieved through close attention to moments of interaction between materials and social actors, located in spatiotemporal contexts in the arts centre. These contexts include the installation ('install') of In the Peaceful Dome which brings into focus the gallery technicians ('techs'), and their work is studied as a vital part of making the exhibition. The animation of the arts centre is shown to also depend on the cultivation of publics and practices within it. The study of the install is matched with the study of the study of the sociomaterial production of these publics; this takes the analysis to both the private view and the everyday life of the arts centre. There are two aspects of production under consideration in this thesis. The first is the skilful work of the gallery techs, which is studied as a practice with a tacit and extra-textual character. The second is the way in which interactions between people and objects are entangled with the institutional context of a specific gallery. This is approached through two complimentary methods. The first is a film making research practice, in which the qualities of film is found to suit the analysis of tacit, skilled material practices and atmospheres. This element of analysis is carried out in a fifteen minute, two channel film Critical Focus: Study of an Arts Centre. This corresponds with two chapters of written analysis which place these interactions in context. These chapters analyse the socio-material work of producing meaningful art objects; the organisation of this work; the production of publics; and the administrative context of art institutions in the UK. This thesis has three contributions. Firstly, a study of the contribution of gallery tech's skilled labour to an art exhibition through a textural and sociological filmmaking practice. Secondly, it theoretically develops Becker's Art Worlds to take account of new sociological approaches to matter, particularly Tim Ingold's. Finally, it offers a theoretical/ ethnographic analysis of the ways in which one art institution makes objects and labour public.