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Things Fall Apart: Meena Hasan at the Old Stone House

In collaboration with Dylan Yeats & Imran Khan

May 2, 2025 – July 6, 2025

Opening Reception: Friday May 2nd, 2025, 6pm

Gallery hours Friday – Sunday, Noon – 4 pm

This site-specific installation draws inspiration from the fact that British commander Charles Cornwallis, who occupied the Old Stone House during the Battle of Brooklyn, later defeated one of the fiercest opponents of colonialism in India, Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore. Brooklyn-based painter and educator Meena Hasan (born 1987, NYC) has created a series of works to wrestle with the contradictions of history, memory, and image.

Things Fall Apart hails Chinua Achebe’s 1958 novel of the same name about the British colonisation of Nigeria, which itself references William Butler Yeats’ 1919 poem about anti-colonial uprisings in Ireland and across the world. Placing the heroic defeats at Brooklyn in 1776 and Seringapatam in 1792 into conversation with each other and this lineage invites us to reflect on the occupations, displacements, and chaos that have brought us to our own moment.

Hasan’s subjects and processes invite viewers into a search for meaning in history. Her paintings of Tipu Sultan artifacts now on display in London, juxtaposed with Cornwallis’ forgotten monument in Chennai, have been cut apart, rearranged, and adorned with the hands of soldiers, prisoners, and the artist herself. Together, they ask us to piece ourselves together within the various layers of disruption, connection, destruction, and creation we have inherited. 

Tipu Sultan was a hero and a monster, a tyrant and a freedom fighter, a remarkable success and also a tragic failure. The same can be said for William Alexander, George Washington, or any of the intertwined legacies of colonialism and independence across the globe. Battles in Brooklyn have reshaped South Asia, and vice versa, for centuries. Where we draw the lines around these complex and contradictory histories, and find our places within them, is up to us.

Enjoy this virtual tour slide show of the exhibition, photographed by Etienne Frossard.

Public Programs:

Friday, May 30th, 6pm: DJ Rekha at the Old Stone House & Washington Park

Friday, June 20th, 6pm: Artist Talk with Meena Hasan

Sunday, July 6th, 10am: Declare Independence: Tear Down the King

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Tipu’s Helmet (from the helmet of Tipu Sultan, National Army Museum, London, England, 1799) with two Acanthus Flowers (from War tent of Tipu Sultan Powis Castle, Powys, Wales, 1725-1750), 2025

Higgins’ India ink, acrylic, Flashe, Okawara paper, backwards aluminum painting easel, two carabiners

65.5” x 37” x 34”

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Tipu’s Tiger (from the throne finial of Tipu Sultan, Powis Castle, Powys, Wales, 1787-1793, with hands from the monument to Charles Cornwalis, Fort St. George, Chennai, India, 1800), 2025

Higgins’ India ink, acrylic and Flashe on Okawara paper

57 x 49 inches

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Ghost of Tipu’s Tiger (from the throne finial of Tipu Sultan, Powis Castle, Powys, Wales, 1787-1793, with hands from the monument to Charles Cornwalis, Fort St. George, Chennai, India, 1800), 2025

Higgins’ India ink, acrylic and Flashe on Okawara paper

58.5 x 48.5 inches

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Tiger Stripes, 2025

Higgins’ India ink, acrylic, Flashe, Okawara paper on panel

24 x 18 inches

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Throne Head (from the throne finial of Tipu Sultan, Powis Castle, Powys, Wales, 1787-1793, with hands from the monument to Charles Cornwalis, Fort St. George, Chennai, India, 1800), 2025

Higgins’ India ink, acrylic, Flashe, Okawara paper, mesh, copper pipe

52 x 74 inches

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Reference Images

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This exhibition is made possible, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.