The Attachment Theory, by Jacopo Papucci, published by Skinnerboox

“My friend killed himself on January 8th. I wondered why he chose that day. Maybe because the holidays were over. Maybe because of the cold. The way the sky was heavy and lifeless. Maybe it had nothing to do with that day.” In his Attachment Theory, psychiatrist John Bowlby argues that the emotional dynamics of the relationship between child and parent in the early years of life are so crucial to the child’s psychological development that they profoundly influence their ability to explore the world and form healthy or unhealthy relationships in the future, like residues of emotional memory sedimented over time, insinuated between skin and muscles, always ready to trigger or defuse certain reactions in our behavioral system. The photographic series The Attachment Theory is a visual exploration of pain, memory, and identity, born as an attempt by the author, Jacopo Papucci, to explain, as far as possible, the reasons behind a traumatic event—the unexpected suicide of a friend—thus generating an intimate and complex investigation into the past, trauma, and the connections that shape us as we grow up. After several discussions with psychotherapists at the psychiatric rehabilitation institute where he works as a nurse, Papucci found a possible interpretation of what had happened in the indelible marks, albeit invisible on the surface, left by the emotional abuse of a difficult family past. Papucci’s visual narrative combines photographs taken in collaboration with patients at the rehabilitation institute with vernacular fragments from the author’s family albums, in a further attempt to reflect on the memories immortalized in the family archive and how the presence or absence and quality of these emotional junctures have the power to influence us in adulthood. Creating a subtle balance between documentation and personal reflection, the images that make up The Attachment Theory blend together in a synergy of intent driven by the desire to understand the reasons behind such an extreme event and to process, as far as possible, the inexplicable pain of loss.

Text by Matilde Manicardi

The Attachment Theory is the winning project of the FE + SK Book Award 2025 promoted by Fotografia Europea.