Kou Inose studied photography at the University of Osaka with photographer Seiryu Inoue. His works today number less than 150 photographs, structured in two series, of which Dogra Magra is the first. In this series, Inose presents a variety of subjects—fantastic personages, views of macabre laboratories, skeletons, hallucinatory landscapes—derived from Yusaku Yumeno’s mythic novel Dogra Magra (1935), set in a psychiatric hospital. Inose invites us on a fantastic voyage, both physical and mental, impelling viewers to decipher the literary inspiration explored by his photographs. In 1993 Kou Inose won the New photographer Prize at the Higashikawa International Photo Festival. He has created a singular body of work that is today one of the most highly prized in Japan.