Photo of flower girls from the Del Monte Studio fonds, SACDA, University of the Fraser Valley / The Reach Gallery Museum.
During a community metadata session, the SACDA team spoke with a family whose wedding images were taken by the Del Monte photo studio in 1973. This meeting allowed the team to learn more about the wedding activities as well as extended family anecdotes. The family specifically requested that they look at one shot for an additional moment. The shot focused on four little flower girls, with the bride visible in the background. However, it was not the main themes on which the family focused, an older woman might be spotted in the photo’s corner. They saw that the elderly woman was an elder in the society, having been in Canada since 1925. The family offered essential migration and settlement histories for the elder and her family. Small but significant exchanges like this, as well as community participation, help SACDA construct more solid metadata characterizing these archive resources and their context.
This picture tells a story more than what meets the eye, it’s comprised of 69 interviews, conducted by the SASI of early South Asian migrants to the Abbotsford region. These community members were instrumental in establishing the Gur Sikh Temple in Abbotsford.