A Discursive Perspective on the Sculpture "Angels Unawares": A Cartography of Migrant–refugee Bodies in Transit

In this study, we gaze at a sculpture that takes us to different paths taken by individuals from different places and cultures. This is the sculpture of the Angels Unawares, a work in honor of the 105th World Day of Migrant and Refugee, created by the Canadian artist and sculptor Timothy Schmalz, in 2019, and which is on display in Saint Peter's Square, in the Vatican. Theoretically, we are guided by a discursive perspective which arises from Discourse Analysis in interface with Deconstruction. In our gestures of interpretation, we designate the subjects of the sculpture's discursive scene as "migrant-refugee-bodies", sice they are bodies amalgamated by bronze that perform a crossing scene and are crowded together on boats, ferries and rafts. This way, we aim to show a certain discursive functioning of a specific significant materiality that resonates a discursive memory about migratory flows. We interpret that the sculpture encapsulates multiple narratives of crossing, each body representing a story of forced or voluntary migration. This amalgam of individual stories makes up a cartography of bodies that highlights the complexity and diversity of migratory journeys. On the sculpture's durable bronze, the migrant-refugee bodies are remembered, contrasting with the fragility of their lives on the journey. Under the guise of a discourse that seeks to evoke sacredness, a biblical passage is mobilized, and the representation of the figure of an angel's wings is brought into the sculpture. This would be a view we consider reductionist because it silences the material and political conditions that cause crossings, especially those resulting from forced displacement. A silencing that can suggest complacency, acceptance or agreement with these conditions, and that, contradictorily, brings to light the need to look more closely at the issue of migratory flows and the treatment given to this other, who is stranger, foreigner, migrant, refugee.