Crit E: Post-Production Evaluation
Criterion E: Post-Production Evaluation asks you to look back upon the experience of realizing your Artist Project and critically evaluate the outcomes of situating your artwork in context and communicating your intentions to an audience (real or potential). Similar to other screen-based criteria, you will use visuals and writing as evidence. Addressing this criterion successfully will support your work in the last AP criterion, Criterion F: Future Development.
What we'll cover on this page:
- Criterion Overview
- Nuts & Bolts and Important Considerations
- Starting Points
- Essential Ingredients (Evidence & Requirements)
Criterion E: Overview of Post-Production Evaluation
*Note the IB language about audience in this criterion speaks to “real or potential” with the understanding that it is possible that some audience members are not directly encountered by you, the student.
| Goal | Consider and critically reflect upon how the location, context, and audience shaped the way your artwork was experienced. |
| Driving Question | How successfully did your artwork communicate its intentions within its chosen context, and how did audiences experience it? |
| Weight | 4 marks (10% of the AP) |
| Highest Markband Descriptor | “The written and visual materials effectively evaluate how the project artwork is situated within the chosen context and communicates with an audience." |
IB Visual Arts guide, p. 78-79
*NOTE: the IB language about audience in this criterion speaks to “real or potential audience(s)” with the understanding that it is possible that some audience members are not directly encountered by you, the student, and that more than one audience (group of people) might encounter the work.
🥜 Nuts & Bolts 🔧 Important Considerations
Communication of Ideas: Did your message land? Often, we have one set of expectations when preparing an artwork, but after setting it up and sharing it, the experience of the artwork fundamentally changes. What changed from what you planned and imagined in your head to how the piece actually turned out in the context?
Situate Your Artwork: How did the context shape the work? Presenting an artwork offers new opportunities for deepening one's understanding of situating an artwork. Take a moment to rethink what new understandings of the local and broader context emerged after installing or setting up your artwork in the final location. What new connections between the physical place, context and artwork did you notice?
Your Audience: How did people experience your work? What did viewers say, do or show while observing or interacting with your piece? If you didn't observe any audience members directly or receive meaningful feedback, imagine how people reacted. How could your message have been successful and how might it have been misunderstood?
Evaluation ≠ Reflection. This criterion is called “Post-Production Evaluation” and critical thinking is required. An evaluation ≠ a reflection and it's important to note the differences.
EvaluationAn essential aspect of Criterion E. Builds on reflection skills; however, it is a judgement of examined evidence. | ReflectionNot a part of Criterion E. A valuable stepping stone to building a strong evaluation. |
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The Post-Production Evaluation is a crucial step to digesting the realization of your Artist Project for an audience so that you can learn and develop from this experience. It also has an impact on the final AP Criterion F, “Future Development,” which will build upon your evaluation.
Read more here.
Teacher only boxScaffolds and Caveats
Reflection as a Scaffold: From start to finish in the Artist Project, students should be thinking about situating their artwork across multiple stages: the Proposal, Connections, and in Dialogues. The Post-Production Evaluation gives students a chance to think about this one more time based on lived experience of sharing their work with an audience within a location of their choice. To honor this work and developing understanding of “situating” their work, a short formative reflection task can be used as a scaffold to help students jump from the powerful experience of sharing their work with the world to evaluating their work and forming more concrete judgments of the Project.
Caveats on the Evaluation: Many students will naturally wish to judge their use of material, techniques or aesthetics when evaluating the success of their work. When a student successfully synthesize concepts with form (materials, visuals), this could form an aspect of their Evaluation. Similarly, when a student's visual communication of their intentions fell short, they can highlight specific aspects of their project as evidence. Your guidance as the teacher, however, is needed to ensure that students distribute their word count effectively to address other aspects (audience, situating), too, without focusing too heavily on their technical execution.
Essential Ingredients
Requirements
- maximum of 2 screens
- up to 300 words
- mixture of visual and written evidence
Evidence:
- Photo documentation of the Artist Project artwork (set up in the location and/or in studio)
- Zoomed out photos of the context surrounding the AP location
- Audience interaction (only if applicable - pictures of people just standing and looking at an artwork won't necessarily “say” much)
- Zoomed in elements of the AP, specific to communicating intentions (not focusing on formal qualities)
- Sketches illustrating intentions
- Anecdotes (i.e. feedback from audience in the moment of presenting your work)
Further Resources
Situating the Artist Project
Where do we find art? How do place and time shape the way we experience, understand and interpret artworks? And how does art change the way we see the world around us? In this section, we break down key...
AP Crit D: Curation & Realization
Criterion D: Curation and Realization in Context follows dialogues and artmaking in the Artist Project. This stage is not about “finishing” your artwork; instead, it's about "realizing" your artwork...
Crit F: Future Development
The last criterion of the Artist Project, Criterion F: Future Development, offers a moment to build upon your learning and evaluation (criterion E) and to harness your imagination to envision new directions...
Image References:
Student Viewing Artwork in a School Hallway. AI-generated with ChatGPT from an original photograph and prompt by Shannon Brinkley, 2026.