Young Movie

An open-air show of animated films by art and computing students from Lublin and Warsaw, about stress, social-media addiction and depression in the teenage years. It stood outdoors beside the Kościuszko Manor House in the UMCS Botanical Garden, and visitors watched it on their own phones by scanning QR codes, until 31 October 2026. The garden published no English text, so the quotation below is our translation of its Polish description.

UMCS Botanical Garden on the exhibition:

The animations are grouped into themed categories such as “Taming Stress”, “Senses and Emotions”, “Addictions and Depression”, “An Addiction Called #Like” and “Sport Is My Life”. They take up the problems that young people face today - addiction (especially to social media), peer violence, a lack of self-acceptance and a distorted self-image, and depression - while pointing to possible ways out: contact with nature, physical activity and care for one’s inner growth.

What to expect

There was no gallery room. Visitors started each film themselves by scanning a QR code and watched it on their phone screens, standing outside the manor house. The garden did not say how many films there were or how long they ran. At the 2024 edition of the series the codes were printed on boards showing stills from the films, according to Polish Radio Lublin; the university said nothing about this year’s layout.

The films were made by students of the UMCS Faculty of Arts in Lublin and of the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology (PJATK) in Warsaw, and were chosen in a competition. They were not premieres: they had first been screened on 9 April 2025 at an open day of the UMCS Faculty of Political Science and Journalism. The outdoor show opened on 1 June 2026, together with two outdoor exhibitions of student sculpture.

The jury gave prizes to three films:

• “Spójrz” (Look), directed by Marta Domżał (PJATK) - first prize.
• “Prawdziwe kolory” (True Colours), directed by Mateusz Cyrankowski (PJATK) - second prize.
• “Bańki (Bubbles)”, directed by Anita Kalińska (UMCS) - third prize, the only one of the three by a Lublin student.

The jury also gave four honourable mentions, all to PJATK students. The curator and artistic supervisor was Joanna Polak, an animation professor at UMCS; Małgorzata Stępnik, also a UMCS professor, oversaw the psychological side.

Where exactly: the garden’s own page put the show outdoors beside the manor house. A May 2026 listing on the student portal Student News placed all three June shows in the Rosarium section, and a July report on the local news site Lublin112 said one stood by the manor and two in the Rosarium.

Context

Augmented reality (AR) combines the real world with computer-generated images, usually by laying graphics over the live picture from a camera. The garden did not explain what the AR element consisted of here; all it said was that each film opened once its code was scanned.

“Young Movie” was the fourth edition of a student series called “Movie”. In 2024 the garden showed student animations called “Freedom Movie” beside the manor house, and in 2025 “60 Fruits Movie”, films about plants in the garden’s collections made for its 60th anniversary, which the university calls the third show of the series. This year the theme moved from plants to mental health, prompted by a 2023-2025 Polish science ministry grant on healthy lifestyles run by four UMCS institutes.

Joanna Polak is an animation director; her 2021 puppet film “Meblościanka” (The Wall Unit) has won festival awards in Poland and abroad. For 15 years she worked with the Borderland centre (Pogranicze) in Sejny, north-eastern Poland, and in 2025 the garden showed her own AR films from that work.

Tickets and time

There was no separate ticket. The show was outdoors, so by the garden’s price list a garden ticket covered it: 16 PLN standard, 11 PLN reduced; the higher prices of 18 PLN and 15 PLN were for entry into the manor house itself. The university did not say in so many words that the outdoor show was covered by the garden-only ticket; that was our reading of the price list.

The films took 30-45 minutes for anyone who wanted more than the three prize-winners. That is our estimate, since the garden gave neither the number of films nor their length.

Who it was for: parents of teenagers and teachers looking for a way into a conversation about social media, stress and self-esteem; anyone curious about student animation; and anyone visiting the garden anyway. Who could skip it: visitors after a proper indoor exhibition, and anyone who did not want to watch films on a small screen.

What the press says

No English-language coverage was found, and nobody had reviewed the show, as of 23 September 2026. There are two Polish news items, both based on the organisers’ material:

• Student News Lublin (27 May 2026): a listing for the 1 June opening at 13:00 of three shows in the “Master and Student” series, “Young Movie” among them - link.
• Lublin112.pl (18 July 2026, text and photos by Leszek Mikrut): a report on three outdoor shows in the garden, with a photo gallery; its headline promised you could not miss them on a walk - link.

Updates

6 November 2026: the exhibition closed on 31 October 2026; the garden has been closed for its winter break since 1 November.

After the show

The UMCS Botanical Garden has been closed for its winter break since 1 November 2026.

• with/against the flow. Contemporary Photographic Interventions - until 10 January 2027.

Museum profile: Kościuszko Manor House.