Finn Yarbrough, a second-year Master’s student in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont, is fascinated by the way people’s emotional states change as they interact with nature. While recently attending a winter ecology course taught by world-renowned naturalist Bernd Heinrich in Weld, Maine, Finn developed this interest into a mixed method study to quantify these changing emotions. By observing and interviewing students in the course, he was able to note a distinct difference in mindset from when they explored the wilds around Bernd’s cabin alone to when they came together with other students at the end of the day.
Finn found that few were truly content while exploring alone in the woods and that the most fulfilling and satisfying moments arose while everyone was back together at the cabin, interacting in a vibrant social community. “I believe that fundamental fulfillment of the human condition is neither sociological or ecological alone — it is a combination of the two,” Finn shared.
A filmmaker and a scientist, Finn has chosen to focus on how we experience nature using the medium of film. His curiosity lies in our tactile relationship with nature as much as it does vibrant social interaction. “Everyone has an opinion about how humans are best able to experience nature,” Finn says, “whether they advocate a back-to-the-wild primitive lifestyle or building sustainable communities within cities. I’d like to think my work on this project shows that a combination of these approaches is ideal.”
Finn’s Master’s research centers around a film that explores how humans experience and know nature. He is creating a highly localized film series that features humans as an integral part of ecosystems and illustrates the vivid eco-relationships of children. This work is inspired by sensory and visual ethnography (a method that has given rise to documentaries like Sweetgrass and Babies) and ecopedagogy, an approach to education that incorporates our relationship with the earth.
“Films are limited to our audio and visual sense," Finn explains. “The challenge of a filmmaker is recreating experiences with only two senses.” The intended audience for the film is children, but Finn admits it has been a complicated process to try and work with younger audiences. The Institutional Review Board designates specific protocol when interviewing any subject for academic purposes, and children often present even further limitations..
“My film will serve as both methods and result,” Finn adds, and his production process is a rigorous one. Finn believes that his work will make the case that film is a medium that is sufficiently broad and challenging enough in scope to be validated in an academic environment. He wonders, “How do you bring someone to a place and invoke meanings and feelings with just film and the viewing experience?” and trusts that his film can begin to approach these questions.
There are certain challenges that come along with being a creatively focused person in an academic environment. Art and science, which Finn believes are “vital to each other,” can be difficult to connect when operating through the stringent requirements of a university. Generating creative work also requires an entirely different approach than writing a literature review, and he thinks that perhaps the “institution is not set up to support both.”
Finn feels lucky to interact with such a vibrant academic community, but he also senses a need for a strong environmental humanities presence to be developed at the University of Vermont. Finn is even considering a PhD as a creative professional in order to support the creation of an ecomedia lab within the Rubenstein School. He sees an opportunity in such a lab to create projects that can serve the community-at-large.
In addition to producing creative films, Finn has also worked for a variety of commercial clients doing various forms of educational advertising. Finn chooses clients that he believes to be meaningful for these projects and tries to experiment creatively while working on them.
He has run a production company with his wife Kate called Earth House Productions since 2008. Their most-well received film was certainly Ministry of the Stove, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Aspen ShortsFest, a prominent short film festival.
Finn recounts a particularly satisfying moment during which his quiet, understated film was played in between two loud, cacophonous shorts. Finn recalls, “You could hear a pin drop during a key moment in the film. It was a shared moment of experience and silence where people, even for a moment, found peace. If we can’t find peace in this world, then what do we have?” He counted this as a successful manifestation of his and his wife’s work.
When Finn isn’t puzzling through the connections between creative filmmaking and environmental academia, he and his wife are raising three children; Beowulf, Elke, and Emrys at their farmhouse in Ferrisburgh, Vermont. It’s important to Finn that they put into practice the themes that they express in their creative work, which means trying to connect to the things that “keep them alive.” They rear, slaughter, and process sheep, and grow vegetables. Finn truly treasures these tactile experiences with the landscape. He is also involved in local politics, including the Addison Northwest School Board and the Ferrisburgh Conservation Commission.