Every art organization aims to get visitors in the door, but that’s not enough. Museums and galleries increasingly seek to connect with audiences well beyond their walls — leading them to grapple for attention on Facebook and YouTube, wherever eyeballs can be reached.

That’s one reason the Swiss Institute, a fixture of New York’s contemporary art scene for decades, began producing SI: Visions, an online video series of short documentaries, now in its second season. The institute’s director, Simon Castets, and the curator, Laura McLean-Ferris, also wanted the videos to be distinctive. Specifically, Ms. McLean-Ferris said, they wanted to share “the experience that we often have in studio visits, talking to artists.”

Each episode — they average around five minutes in length — takes a narrow focus that arises from a lengthy conversation with the subject. It’s a guided journey down a rabbit hole.

“The idea was to try and see through the artist’s eyes,” Ms. McLean-Ferris said.

So rather than seeing a straightforward recitation of an artist’s biography, viewers can engage with the ideas that most inspired an individual project. And because the artists are creative partners in the series, it is also a chance for them to discuss lesser-known aspects of their work.