Like her predecessor Saskia Bos, American curator Valery Smith develops her own strategy for Sonsbeek 93. First, she chooses to include the city center and areas on the outskirts of Arnhem, in addition to the park. These three rings are depicted in the logo of Sonsbeek 93. Smith's ideas can be summarized with the words identity, public domain, and process. Seventy-three artists from around the world are commissioned to create site-specific works of art. Smith invites them to critically examine the identity of a certain location, if possible in relation to residents. Questions that are central: how are public places designed; how do they function; and by whom are they used?

Sonsbeek 93 could be considered a process. Many artworks are not about the final result, but about the process that preceded it, or the reaction that was provoked. This idea is represented by the catalogue, which only includes descriptions of the collaborative processes between Smith and the artists. Images of the final artworks are missing for the most part. Critical reponses to Smith's curatorial concept appear in the media. Retrospectively, however, Sonsbeek 93 is considered an important exhibition in relation to emerging social art practices in the 1990s. In 2014, Jens Hoffman even considered Sonsbeek 93 among the fifty most influential exhibitions of the past twenty-five years.