DHON (TWO) — Pretika Menon

Dhon (Two)
2021 - Ongoing

In 2020, two months into the pandemic, I watched the unnaturally clear blue skies in Bombay turn a darker gray than before. Four years into living my dream of being a fashion photographer in the big city, hustle life no longer appealed to me and I decided to leave. I moved from a rented apartment in chaotic Bombay to the village of Moira in North Goa.

I remembered summers spent in my village in Kerala, and a year in Ooty learning photography. Those formative memories in rural India were euphoric, and I longed for a sense of exploration and adventure again.

It was my third big move within India, this time away from everything I thought I wanted. As a stranger in Goa, I spent a lot of time walking around my naighborhood. My first monsoon there, I watched a cyclone tear aluminum sheets off my neighbor’s rooftop, and trees fall down blocking access to entire villages. I noticed that life didn’t stop, the locals went about their activities. I took a cue from that and got some rain gear, and started walking in the rain. I had a regular route which deviated a bit, everyday getting longer and longer. On one deviation I came across an old stairway overgrown with grass and bush. I walked up to explore, inspired by the movie The Secret Garden, hoping to land up in some other enchanted dimension.

I reached the top and found a wall marking the periphery of an old house.

A friendly face popped up from behind the wall and spoke to me:

“Hi! What are you doing here?”

And so I came to know Eugene, who invited me into her home to meet her twin daughters Eulanda and Rustica, and the twins’ grandmother Maria. Eugene extended an open invitation, so I kept going back and they soon adopted me into their rythms.

When Eugene asked me to photograph the twins’ twenty first birthday I knew they had accepted me in the role of family photographer.

Dhon moves through their intimate interior lives, situating daily gestures against a landscape sliding into real-estate speculation. Their home holds a density of memory at risk of erasure.

Flowing between documentary and staged imagery, Dhon attempts to hold that world still. In the lives of Eugene, Eulanda, Rustica, and Maria, I found a way to revisit my own longing for continuity.

Grants received for Dhon:
Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Grant for Photography 2023
PHMuseum Women Photographer’s Grant 2023.

A photo book is in the works.

Exhibitions:
Dhon (Two), Curated by Photo Vogue, at The Photo Vogue Festival,
Milan 01.03.2026 - 04.03.2026
‘Every thing leaks’ group show Curated by Neighbour HQ at Dutch Warehouse, Fort Kochi, 12.12.2025 - 31.03.2026
Dhon (Two), curated by Offset Projects, at Chennai Photo Biennale, 2025
Dhon (Two), curated by Goa Familia at Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa, 2024
Dhon (Two), curated by Prashant Panjiar at Goa Open Arts Festival, Goa, 2024

ROAMING.