Linnea Hopkins-Ekdahl — Ratrock Magazine

Feature by Sayuri Govender

Photos by Jade Li

Linnea Hopkins-Ekdahl is a multimedia artist at Columbia. She works to capture the beauty of the mundane aspects of life through film photography, screenwriting and filmmaking, traditional and digital painting, collage, and print. I talked to her about renouncing perfectionism, the process of finishing a piece, fan culture, and future plans for her art.

I met Linnea Hopkins-Ekdahl in the lobby of East Campus, experiencing the slight shame of being a Barnard student and waiting to get swiped in. Luckily, her immediate warmth curbed any sense of embarrassment. Linnea’s love and warmth extends into the art she creates, in which she captures her close friends, her favorite objects, and cherished memories. As a multimedia artist, her work takes on numerous shapes and forms. Because of this, Linnea has unlearned the need for perfectionism as mastery. She instead focuses on what makes her most passionate–whether that be her newfound love of weekly collages or honing her filmmaking and screenwriting skills for her future career.

Her apartment, shared with her friends, was filled with Linnea’s art–from portraits to still lifes to film photography. Her art shared a space with vibrant print collages and ceiling-high movie posters, creating a colorful and inspired space. In the kitchen, Linnea pushed a rainbow beaded curtain aside, offering me some tea left behind by a friend from England. On the dining room table lay black and white film prints of her roomate taken by the ferris wheel at Coney Island. When I asked Linnea about her inclination towards depicting her friends in her art, she smiled, saying “I’m so happy to be able to portray them. For these photos, someone else might be like “that's cool I guess” but I see it as “oh my god that was such a fun day at Coney Island!” Whether a picture of a day at Coney Island or a painting of a moment of quiet studying, Linnea is fascinated by the mundanity of life. Her current project is her weekly collage, made up of the wonders and scraps of the week. “I collect a bunch of stuff that most people would think is trash, but I choose very carefully. My memory is not great sometimes, and it's so easy to forget what happened. I’m super interested in the process of recording my life and others’ and those small stories that you would otherwise forget about.” As we talked, she quietly took the sticker label off a discarded pound cake wrapper that would later find its place in her collage. “It's also really nice to have a private practice for yourself,” she added, “and collages are helping me let go of perfection.”

We discussed her short films, one made in her sophomore year and one during her junior year study abroad in Prague. The latter was shot fully on film–an arduous but rewarding process. “The process of shooting on film itself is so intense. You only have 2-3 rolls of film, so you can't do as many takes as you can shooting on digital. With film, sometimes you get just one take.” Her first short film–funded by Columbia University Film Productions in 2022–is currently removed from Youtube so she can re-edit and re-work it. “It was my first time writing a script and my first time doing literally anything film related” she explained, “so I was trying to teach myself while pretending I knew everything for my crew.” Her film, which followed two people trying to figure out if they were on a date or not, struck a chord in many viewers. “It wasn’t based on my life, but a lot of people said it was relatable, which was great–it shows the truth in it!” Her next steps for filmmaking would be “Writing a feature. I wouldn't make it right now, but it would be an ongoing process extending beyond graduation. I definitely want to work to improve my script writing.”

Linnea further expressed how she recently shed the idea of striving for perfection and mastery. “Since I work with so many mediums and have so many interests, it's impossible to get really good at one thing,” she mused, adding how “I spoke to a filmmaker over the summer who identified as a multimedia artist, even though they primarily focus on film. I asked them, "Where do you find the time to master all the different skills you need to do this?" And they said, "well just the word ‘master’ itself has a deeply problematic history" which is so true. It made me realize I don't want to master anything or aim for constant perfection. I can leave the unfinished behind me!” By renouncing the idea of perfection, Linnea is able to work in many mediums at once, as well as let projects breathe and have time between when she first works on them to when she finishes them.

This practice of returning to a piece of art extends beyond Linnea’s films. Her process for painting maintains a dedicated attention to detail. She told me how a painting of a friend was currently sitting downstairs, and is “in danger of me repainting it. I'm itching to get my hands on it, but I don't want to ruin it.” I asked her how she knew a painting was done or if any of her work ever felt truly finished. “It depends on when I’m satisfied,” she explained, “some are unfinished and I don’t feel the desire to finish it, but I know it could come later. Some are done because the varnish is on it. But, the thing I like the most about painting, especially oil paints, is that you can work it over and over and over again. I don't believe in mistakes while painting.”

Besides my love for Linnea’s portraits, I was captivated by a piece of her Captain America collection–a play on the “Cabinet of Curiosities” trope with a heartfelt but fan-oriented subject. When I asked her about it, she told me how “I believe in having fun with things. But even though it is a silly subject matter, fan culture is a thing that's taken very seriously. It's something that can get people through dark places, and also let people express things they might not usually be able to explore.” Linnea’s interest in fan culture comes from her own participation. We talked about shared experiences with fandom, especially the artistic output of fandom. When I asked her about the process of creating fanart versus traditional works, she stopped me to address the stigmas around fanart. “I think that idea of ‘progress’ is super interesting,” she started, “it brings up the concept of high and low art and what is overall considered art. Fanart is considered low art that you move on from and replace with high art–but so many great works are fanart or fanfiction. I mean, Good Omens is like Bible fanfiction, Dante’s Inferno is his fanfiction, and some pop art is fanart. I have read so many beautiful works of fanfiction, and seen so many beautiful works of fanart–better than some contemporary art I’ve seen.”

Fandom still holds a place in Linnea’s work today. Leaned against her bedroom window is a pair of two-toned vibrant screen printed images of Bucky Barnes, along with numerous postcards, film photographs, and paintings from her favorite artists. It tells a story of her time at Columbia with her friends–memorialized in printed photos, the skills passed down to her from her family, and the art that continues to inspire her today. On her shelf were two film cameras: her grandfather’s old film camera and her father’s Nikon from the 90s that she's used for years. “I love old cameras and seeing if I can get them to work,” she explained. It was clear that family played a significant role in her life, as Linnea also mentioned how her grandmother went to art school before becoming a nurse, musing how “I feel like creativity is in my blood”.

In five years time, Linnea is unsure where she will be, but is hopeful about her future. “I’m trying to figure out what balance of things I want to create for myself. So many people fall into their jobs or have job titles that they wouldn't have known existed in the past. There could be something out there that I don’t even know exists now! So hopefully, I will find whatever my niche is in New York. And maybe have a dog.” In terms of being a multimedia artist, Linnea expressed her desire to find a deeper connection between the mediums she works in. “I definitely want to connect my work more. I think that's what I'm turning towards now–collage and mixed media animation where the technique is more physical. With animation, I can combine my enjoyment of collage, painting and film.”

Linnea’s art transcends typical notions of mastery and tradition in favor of depicting the things she cherishes the most. As her work finds homes in new and old mediums, she beautifully captures the familiar, the beloved, and the wonders of the mundane.

FEATURES