Ioana Gordon-Smith is Curator | Kaitiaki Whakaaturanga at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery.  Te Uru is a recently refurbished contemporary arts space situated in West Auckland. Prior to this role, she was the head Curator at Objectspace, a Ponsonby based gallery dedicated to exhibiting emerging and established craft, design and applied arts. In 2013, Gordon-Smith was also the inaugural Education Intern for Artspace, New Zealand; a role which came about through a partnership between Tautai Contemporary Arts Trust and Artspace to increase the accessibility of Artspace to its nearby Pacific audiences.

In addition to her curatorial work, Ioana also contributes regularly to a number of catalogues as well as magazines and journals, such as Art New Zealand, Art News New Zealand and un Magazine. She was the New Zealand-based project manager for the inaugural Honolulu Biennial 2017 and has been a regular Pasifika correspondent for Radio New Zealand.

She plays an important role in community arts as a trustee for the community-focused art collective Whau The People. Though her areas of interest span a broad range of disciplines, what is consistent throughout is a curatorial process that prioritises a close working relationship with artists and arts communities.