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CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT

"Dash Loves You:" Photography by the late Dashiell Titus Parker

"Dash Loves You: Photographs By The Late Dashiell Titus Parker" was curated by Shelly Parker O’Rourke.

To take a virtual tour of the exhibit from the comfort of your home, click the links below. You can also view Dash's photography at dashlovesyou.org.

Dash Parker Photography

Exhibit Reception

About The Artist:

Dashiell Titus Parker. January 7, 1988 – October 9, 2018. If you knew him, chances are he met your gaze through a lens. And there was a good chance you joined the images of his collected family and friends. Frozen in moments of laughter, celebration or contemplation as you looked back at him, frozen in time. Yours was a face he could look on whenever he wanted from the comfort of his desk, bed or in the soft flicker of a screen.

As time changed, physical prints were replaced with digital images. Websites became social media. Dash was there. In the harsh world of likes and social media rants, Dash offered personal images wrapped in a simple message: Dashiell loves you. He did. We all knew it. We had for years. 

From the moment he picked up his first camera at the age of four and over the next 26 years, he sought out and found beauty in the ordinary, the everyday, the ignored and the unexpected. He saw the world differently. Now we see have the chance to see the world through his eyes. 

These works of Dashiell Titus Parker were curated by the person who knew him best, his mom, Shelly Parker O’Rourke. The collected photographs and videos you see span the years 1996 to 2018. The work ranges from a soulful portrait of a chimp Dash met at age 8 to dilapidated buildings in which Dash found beauty, to his last self-portrait as he gazes blissfully through a sunroof during a hurricane. Many of the photographs were printed by Dash in the darkrooms of Hoggard High School and Cape Fear Community College; others were gathered from the many computers and hard drives he amassed over the years. Dash’s music plays in the background.

This body of work is a celebration of the legacy that will live on beyond Dash’s short 30 years. It is this legacy of images and sounds that serves as a fitting reminder of the namesake of the nonprofit that is launching in his honor, Dash Loves You, a foundation that will help children see the beauty of the world through their own photography and help artists overcome societal obstacles to share their work with the world. Dash believed in the beauty of life, even when it wasn’t always pretty.