PRETIKA MENON
Photobook: Dhon (Two)
Pretika Menon’s Dhon (Two), a long-term photographic work, began as a chance encounter with Eugene D’Souza. The story began when Eugene, now a friend, asked Pretika to document her twin daughters, Eulanda and Rustica, at their twenty-first birthday party in their centuries-old home in Moira, Goa. The photobook captures an intergenerational dialogue between Eugene, her daughters, and Maria, their grandmother.
Dhon invites us to reconsider the family photograph as a genre while expanding on the traditions of documentary and staged imagery. It offers a unique glimpse into the twins’ lives, a coming-of-age story which evokes intimacy and timelessness. The publication also visualises a growing urbanity and the precariousness of preserving Goan heritage, amidst mass migration into the state. In the details lie the intricacies of inner and outer worlds, and spaces which mirror each other through poetic contrast.
Pretika Menon is a photographer based in Goa. Her practice, spanning over a decade, moves between fashion, culture, and social commentary. She is on the ‘Ones to Watch 2026’ list, the British Journal of Photography’s annual selection of emerging photographers. In 2023, she received the PhMuseum Women Photographers Grant 2023 and the Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Grant for Photography 2023 for Dhon (Two). She is an educator at Istituto Marangoni Mumbai, where she has lectured on global fashion photography trends for the past six years.
JURY REFLECTIONS
“Pretika Menon’s book project Dhon (Two) lies somewhere between the reportage and the vernacular. Arising from several years of photographic work in a local family in Goa, it carries a rare sense of intimacy, spontaneity and sisterhood between the subjects and with the photographer. A compelling and well-curated body of work.“
– Édouard de Saint-Ours (Curator of Photography, Musée National des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, Paris)
“Pretika Menon’s Dhon (Two) is an exceptionally well-crafted and deeply intimate study of home, family, memory, and belonging. Boldly embracing a traditional approach to the photographic medium, Menon weaves candid and carefully staged imagery into a quiet, poetic narrative structure, creating a nuanced portrait that connects the intimate experience of one family to the broader cultural and social changes taking place in rural Goa.“
– Per Gylfe (Director of Education, International Center of Photography, New York)