Deborah Smith

Deborah Smith is a curator and consultant whose practice explores strategies for collaboration and the presentation of interdisciplinary work.
She was formerly Director of the Arts Council Collection, the UK’s most widely circulated national collection of modern and contemporary British art, and has held key roles as Interim Head of Programmes at the Serpentine Galleries and Associate Curator at Arup, the global engineering and design firm. She co-founded the curatorial partnership Smith + Fowle.

Smith has curated independently for over three decades, developing major exhibitions and initiating institutional programmes. Recent projects include Excavation: Macro to the Micro, a VR/online exhibition on vortic.art. In addition to her curatorial work, she is a judge for the Museum + Heritage Awards, a Shadow Board Member of The Box, Plymouth, and serves on the University of Warwick Art Collection Committee and the HS2 Independent Design Panel.

Deborah Smith is invited by Frame in the context of the Helsinki Biennial 2025. Her visit is made possible thanks to the support of the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland.