Finding Friendship in the K-Pop Community with Katya Ilina
Interview by Lisa der Weduwe | 11.02.25
Falling in love with K-pop culture after a trip to Japan, Katya Ilina's project You Never Walk Alone documents the people and meet ups that bring the community together. We talk IRL dance outs, fandoms and breaking down gender norms.
Can you talk about the first time you encountered the K-pop community and how you came to be involved in it?
I got interested in K-pop in 2017 thanks to a trip to Japan. It’s one of the key markets for K-pop and it has been popular there for a long time. By traveling and going to music shops, I saw a lot of K-pop posters, artworks, and advertising all over the place. There was a phenomenon in the K-pop community where fans would pay for advertising to put on buses, billboards and in the underground, for their idols, to celebrate a birthday or anniversary. You could see that everywhere, even if you don’t specifically look for it. So I got curious and searched for K-pop music videos on YouTube. I think BIGBANG came up. That song was popular at the time. "Bang Bang Bang", which is very over the top and memorable. Then I started looking at the TV shows that they take part in. I found it super funny and I vibed with it. I got into that tunnel of learning more and more and more. Since then I have become a part of the community.
After that trip to Japan, I had a chance to study Korean, because I got interested enough to go there for six months and learn the language and culture. I made a lot of friends with K-pop fans out there. There’s a lot of international people who were also studying or traveling, and I saw all the sides of the fandom. The fandom is so unlike anything I've experienced before with Western artists growing up in my teen years. It was just fascinating and different.
I started photographing the scene organically in 2023. BLACKPINK were coming to Hyde Park in July. I love them, but I didn't get a ticket because it was super expensive, so I decided just to go there and see what's happening. Sometimes you can hear the music from the outside. I took my camera because I'd been doing street portraits for a while and I wasn't going to get in. I ended up chatting to some people who are also outside listening. Talking and taking photos, it was such a nice day. I decided to see if maybe I could make it into a longer project. I started going to concerts and taking portraits of fans of different bands. Fans when they go to the concert, they would have styled an outfit in a band style, or make some sort of outfits copying the music videos. This is how it started.
I think the thing that I've always noticed about K-pop is that the fandom is really overt. Can you talk about what the fandom looks like?
I feel like it's incredibly interesting, it's incredibly diverse and open. You meet people from different ages, different backgrounds, that have this shared love for Korean art and music. It gives us an instant connection. I've met so many people, especially in Korea, just by hanging out or trying to get a ticket for a concert. You have these random conversations and we are still talking five plus years after, because we connected on this deep level. I find that this fandom is very open. It is very diverse, people from different ethnicities, different sexualities.
K-pop challenges gender norms, especially for men, because Asian ideas of what masculinity is, is completely different. For example, when I first encountered K-pop I was surprised how the male musicians would openly cry at the award ceremonies, or be really warm and supportive to each other, which I didn't see from musicians before. I really love this warm support that I could see between the musicians themselves and also between the fans.
The project explores the community through queer lens. How did that come about and how do you think the scene provides a safe space for queer folk?
The fandom encompasses a lot of fun, creative activities. Dancing for example, dance and fashion, are very queer safe spaces. You see girls dancing to guy songs and mixed gender groups dancing to girl songs.
I love searching the internet and YouTube for the songs that I like and dance covers. I can see fans from all over the world, guys and girls dancing to the same song. And even if it's the same song, it's still so interesting to see and think who is dancing? How did they interpret the outfits of the musicians? Because they often try to dress in the same style as the original music video. It's just so incredible how diverse the videos are. Sometimes you see one person dancing in a room, or it’s a whole big production with 20 plus people doing the same routine. I love that.
Dance is a recurring theme in your photos. It's a music-led subculture, but actually, dance seems to be such an important hallmark of it.
I'm so bad at dancing, but I love watching it. I love going to these gatherings just to see people dance. I feel like it's an amazing way for someone who's into this music to feel a part of it and meet other people.
A lot of amateur dance crews do videos and upload them to social media. Some of my friends just do it for fun in their room, without a dance group, and upload it. I think because music videos and visuals are so important to the music culture, that's why the dance crews are so important.
The dances that these groups create, the choreographers often mix elements of Korean culture with Western music inspired moves. For example they use Michael Jackson inspired moves all the time and it's really interesting.
I think you don't necessarily always see the dancers when we look at music based cultures, a lot of times the focus is on the musicians. But I think because there's such a strong dance community surrounding it, you really see the fans in a different way.
You talk about these videos and there's obviously this really international network as well. So a huge part of the community and how it connects is online, but also there are so many IRL spaces where people meet. How is that dynamic between the offline and the online?
I feel like they mix really easily, and where possible they create these physical spaces. When I started this project I was quite new to London. I'd been here for two years and when I would come to these events, I would feel very welcomed and people were really open to being photographed. They felt a real pride in what they were doing, the outfits, the dances, and that. It's easy to meet people. Like you follow someone online and then if they're doing some sort of event, you can go there and create that community. So I think that's really great.
It reminds me of this video that I saved by an American girl who is also into K-pop, talking about her experiences. She was saying how crazy it is that she would travel to other cities for a concert and would ask somebody she never met in person if they would share a hotel room with her. She would totally trust them, because she knows that this person is into the same band. And somehow it's crazy, having this level of trust, just based on this very sort of virtual connection, but somehow it works all the time. Personally, I’ve never had any bad experiences with fans who like K-pop.
What do you hope that people who aren't involved in K-pop take away from the photographs?
When I was just starting to get into the fandom, I noticed how even my family were not understanding of how I got into K-pop in my 20s. They were like, you’re too old. Why are you listening to this music? It's sort of silly. Even though my family is supportive, they couldn't understand.
I feel like a lot of people who don't know much about K-pop see it as some sort of silly thing that teenage girls do. But it's not true. I want to show how diverse this group of people is. How creative and how much new art forms K-Pop inspires - video art, fashion, dances - how much of inspiration it gives to people and how much of a positive influence it has on the lives of those who love this art form.
One final question we ask everyone at the end of an interview. If you were to donate an object to the Museum of Youth Culture that you think we should have in our collection, what would that be and why?
I really love the fan made merchandise that I bought in Korea. I have this comic book, it's all in Korean and I don't know exactly 100% what it says, but it's a comic book, drawn by someone about an imagined story between two anime characters who are based on the real members of BTS. They did an exhibition, which I attended, with a lot of drawings, postcards and small comic books. I really love this part of the culture. It's another element that is inspiring people.
You can follow Katya on Instagram here.
And find her website here.
