IB Theory of Knowledge 2.9 the Exhibition Event and the Administrative Requirements Notes

2.9 The exhibition event and the administrative requirements

The exhibition as an event, and whether it has to be public

1. The word exhibition covers two different things here. One is a single file of images and writing, which is marked and moderated. The other is an occasion where finished work is shown to an audience, and that occasion is not assessed.
2. Your school must give you an opportunity to show your completed exhibition to an audience. This occasion is outside the formal assessment task.
3. The audience can be as small as your own class. Other options include two classes hosting each other, a showing for younger year groups, or a virtual gallery online.
4. The event has no separate mark. A room laid out with care, a spoken introduction or a printed handout cannot supply reasoning missing from the submitted file.
5. Explaining one object out loud to somebody who has not read your commentary can reveal a link you thought you had written down and had not. At the event, you are discussing work already completed.

Photographs: what has to be captured and at what quality

1. The image should identify a particular object with a specific real-world context. A photograph of somebody's baby brother has that context; a generic baby image from a search does not identify the same person or occasion.
2. Digital objects are allowed. A particular tweet by a political leader, for example, exists at a specific time and in a virtual space. Identify the post and the context relevant to your commentary.
3. An object you made yourself can qualify, provided it was not created specifically for the exhibition. A painting made for your visual arts course may work; a collage assembled solely to fit an IA prompt does not. You may take a new photograph of an existing object.
4. Every image needs an appropriate reference. Identify and acknowledge your own original work too, so its origin is clear.
5. The assessment focuses on the specificity of the object and its context. The Rudimentary band, 1–2, refers to generic images of types of object. A technically polished photograph can still leave the reader unable to identify which object you mean.
6. Frame the object so that whatever your justification turns on is inside the picture. A maker's mark, a date stamped on the back, the scale of the thing next to something familiar: if it is neither visible nor stated in the commentary, it is not in evidence.

Assembling the file for assessment

1. The task produces one document containing four components. Your teacher marks that file, and the IB receives it if your work is sampled for moderation.
2. Your file needs to make sense to a reader who never watched you choose your objects. The exhibition is marked by your teacher and externally moderated by the IB.
3. Whatever you explained out loud while choosing the objects is outside the file, and the file is the assessment. A justification that was convincing in conversation and got abbreviated on the page is read as the abbreviation.
4. Samples are sent for moderation. Every student's work must be confirmed as authentic, whether or not it is selected.
5. The commentary has to be typed and the images included in the same file. If an object's significance depends on its weight or a moving mechanism, explain that feature and its relevance in the commentary; the reader cannot handle the object.

What the single file contains

1. Include a title identifying your selected IA prompt, images of your three objects, a typed commentary on each object, and appropriate citations and references. These are required components, not a prescribed page-by-page layout.
2. Reproduce the chosen IA prompt exactly in your title. Keep its wording and punctuation rather than summarising it.
3. Placing each image beside its commentary makes the connection easy to follow. Explain each object's particular contribution, while remembering that the exhibition receives one holistic judgement.
4. The 950-word maximum covers the commentaries on all three objects together. An even split would allow about 316 words each, but equal lengths are not required.
5. Text contained on or within the objects themselves is excluded from the count, as are acknowledgments, references and the bibliography. Your own analysis belongs in the commentary and counts towards the limit.
6. Extended footnotes and appendices are not appropriate. Keep the argument within the commentary rather than moving it to the back.

Authenticity declarations and who signs what

1. Your teacher authenticates work submitted for moderation. You also confirm that the work is your own and is the final version.
2. Before confirming the final version, check that you have included the intended images and commentaries. Keep a copy of the exact file you submit.
3. That second clause is why the draft rule matters to you. Your teacher reads and advises on one draft, giving oral or written advice on how the work could be improved, and may not edit it.
4. The next version you hand to your teacher after receiving advice on the draft must be the final version for submission.
5. You may seek guidance and must not be penalised for doing so. Ask when you need clarification, rather than waiting for your teacher to ask how the work is going.
6. Keep a record of where each object and image came from. Alongside your drafts and references, it helps you explain how you developed the exhibition.

Submitting fewer than three objects

1. The task requires three objects, each with an image and accompanying commentary. If only two are provided, the maximum available mark is 6; if only one is provided, it is 3. These are task-completeness limits, not marks predicted for a particular exhibition.
2. Check completeness separately from the quality of your reasoning. An image and commentary may both be present while the link to the prompt still needs explanation.
3. The five described levels address the exhibition as a whole, including the objects' contexts, links to the prompt, contributions and supporting evidence.
4. A missing image, an unresolved source or a commentary that would push the total past 950 words can leave you with an incomplete file. Check these while you still have time to resolve them.
5. Choose the objects and secure usable images early. Leaving the third image until submission week can turn a solvable problem into a missing component.

A checklist to run the week before submission

1. Read your title against the official prompt, word by word, including the question mark. A recognisable but modified prompt is assessed against the original, and any resulting loss of relevance affects the assessment.
2. Count the commentary text, including any substantive introduction or conclusion you choose to add. Exclude the acknowledgments, references, bibliography and text within the objects themselves. Do not assume the software's whole-document total is the assessment word count.
3. Check that all three images are referenced and that anything of your own is identified as yours. Resolve missing source details before you submit.
4. Read each commentary asking: which object is this, what is its specific context, how does it connect to the prompt, and what does it contribute? A paragraph can sound fluent while leaving one of these unexplained.
5. Open the finished file on another device if you can. Check that every image appears inside it; a link to an image on your own drive may fail for another reader.