There is something irresistible about small exhibitions. If you visit Istanbul Modern this month, you will see an excellent Mehmet Güleryüz retrospective, the museum's main attraction at the moment that dominates the ground floor of the building. Instead I found myself spending two full hours at "Artists' Film International," a small video exhibition on the same floor and will be on display until March 12 this year.Curated by Çelenk Bafra the exhibition showcases works by a group of video artists, including Yuri Ancarani, Vahap Avşar, Lee Kai Chung, Burak Delier, Dalila Ennadre, Provmyza Group, Mattias Harenstam, Oded Hirsch, Rebecca Ann Hobbs, Tran Luong, Jorge Macchi, Nicole Miller, Karen Mirza, Brad Butler, Uudam Tran Nguyen, Masooda Noora, Pallavi Paul, Elisabeth Price, Tejal Shah, Anatoly Shuravlev, Angela Su, Milica Tomic, Diego Tonus, Amir Yatziv, Tanya Busse and Emilija Skarnulyte. "The ground floor of Istanbul Modern has three galleries for temporary exhibitions," Çelenk Bafra explained. "Artists' Films International is complimentary to the other exhibitions and I believe it provides a dynamism and variety in Istanbul Modern's program." Alongside the Güleryüz retrospective there is a photography exhibition by Turkish artist and photographer Şahin Kaygun. While solo shows focus on eminent local artists' practices on image, painting and photography, AFI is an international program dedicated to the moving image through various displays, video installations, thematic programs on monitors, wall projections and a weekly screening program.The AFI project was originally initiated by Whitechapel, London's legendary public art gallery, founded in 1901. In 2008, the Whitechapel Gallery invited various art institutions as partners, aiming to bring together knowledge and expertise of museums, art institutions, film centers and cultural associations. The objective was to provide an international showcase for most recent works of some of the most exciting artists working with the moving image. "Istanbul Modern is one of the first partners to join a program which now has 18 partners in total from all around the world, including Afghanistan, New Zealand, Vietnam and Argentina," Bafra said. The program was originally titled "Art in the Auditorium" and was then mainly about making screening programs in museum cinemas or gallery auditoriums. Gradually, curators considered making exhibitions using the pool of works, instead of organizing screenings. "As for the artists and works invited in the program, it is totally a curatorial selection," Bafra told me. Curators from each partner select a film or video work of an artist from their respective country for that particular year and share a curatorial text, video files and the artist's portfolio. The international pool of videos is then programmed by a curator as screenings or exhibitions in their institutions.Burak Delier's "Crisis and Control" explores the relationship between capitalism and art, while Vahap Avşar's "Road to Arguvan" looks at the meanings of a massive crack formed on a road in Turkey in the 1980s. Both videos seem to capture Turkey at a point of cultural and social anxiety, perfectly representing "conflict," this year's AFI concept. "I am in charge of the selection of an artist and a work from Turkey and I am aware of the responsibility," Bafra said. "I try to follow emerging artists and select a video work that was produced within the last two years. I try to find a video that represents certain features of current video art in Turkey. I believe that the work needs to have significance for Turkey's cultural and political situation. At the end of the day, it will be perceived as the Turkish video art when screened in foreign countries."The AFI exhibition features a video room named "Blackbox." Bafra explained its mission as highlighting certain works in the program. "I selected eight works from other partners and each will be screened only for one week in Blackbox, a dedicated video room," she said. "I believe they need to be displayed in a dark room because of the nature of the work. It is only the second week so it's hard to evaluate the audience reception. For last week's video, we organized a talk with the artist and the curator who selected that particular work. "It was quite well received," she added.