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Gemma Janes

@gemmajanes

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Founder @sendb00ks

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METAMORPHOSES Introducing the first Sendb00ks residency Okiki Akinfe, Ines di Folco Jemni, Elsa Rouy, Jan Melka, Tali Lennox and Mathilde Albouy will be the six artists in residency at Castello Rocca Sinibalda from June 19-July 4. They will be creating a work in response to books I - III of Ovid’s metamorphic flood of a poem. On the opening night, limited edition copies of this special Sendb00ks publication, wrapped in the sleeves of each responding artist, will be available to guests in the grand court. For those who can not be with us physically, readings, interviews and talks will be happening digitally throughout the two weeks. As always, we invite everybody to read along with us. The books and tickets will also be availible to pre-order from SundayPoster Image of Io transformed, iPhone photograph of a scanned and photographed crop originally from Zeus and Io Surprised by Hera (detail, c.1656), Jan Gerritsz. van Bronchorst (Dutch, c.1603–1661)Because, in the words of Ovid translated;All things change but nothing dies 🌱 by @gemmajanes

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2 months ago

My Instagram boyfriend and I @talilennox ft. Tali’s sleeve inspired by the myth of Apollo and Daphne for the @sendb00ks edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Made in residence @castelloroccasinibalda 🦂 by @gemmajanes

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9 days ago

@rashiworld_ 🌊 with @annafeller ❤️‍🔥@dianalouisebartlett @katinabananana @misaelbrown_surf @sherrill_smith @dmanagementgroup by @gemmajanes

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Mathilde Albouy, Untitled (Wetland)Created during the @sendb00ks residency at @castelloroccasinibalda On the underside of the sleeve, each artist is in conversation with @gemmajanes about their response to Ovid’s Metamorphoses🖤Can you tell me about your rendition of the myths?I’ve worked in more symbolic ways. I didn’t want to illustrate one myth in particular, I really enjoyed the feeling of the first book, where chaos becomes order. I was thinking of a physical way to represent this straightening and identification, and as the hair and the strings and threads are recurrent motives, I decided to take this for the base of the work. You went to Rome and bought all these silk threads and then had the idea to tangle them or pull knots together. Ovid describes the beginning of the cosmos as a primordial soup.Yes, in the opening there is a very dark and profound earth that is extending. But in my piece it could also be water. Or a drawing of the wind, hair floating, a nymph running away from a god. It could be stagnant but somehow there is still movement. I like this image of a swamp, as a place where you don’t really know if it’s solid or liquid, like this place of birth, of a lot of things.🖤Untitled (Wetland) by Mathilde Albouy (@mathildealbouy The edition is 1 of 150 sleeves made during the 2026 Sendb00ks residency at Castello di Rocca SinibaldaThe collection contains works by Okiki Akinfe, Elsa Rouy, Tali Lennox, Jan Melka, Mathilde Albouy and Inès di Folco Jemni Availible on our website with 1/600 editions of Ovid’s Metamorphoses1. Sleeve design by @mathildealbouy 2.3. “It’s giving Arachne” - @biancaapozzi photography @gemmajanes 4. Sleeve art direction @ranana.t printed at @mountstreetprinters 5. Mathilde in the grand court @castelloroccasinibalda 6. Artwork detail by @gemmajanes

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Elsa Rouy ‘Coronis in Purple Gore’ Created during the @sendb00ks residency @castelloroccasinibalda On the reverse of their sleeve each artist is in conversation with @sendb00ks about Ovid’s Metamorphoses🖤“I think it was Annie Ernaux who said; Pain cannot be kept intact, it needs to be “processed,” converted into humour.I don’t think that humans are capable of experiencing that much pain. So metamorphosis happens when characters go through this intense grief. And then they have to change, they can’t contain it. And the purple? That was the line that began the painting: “and as she drew the keen shaft from the wound, her snow-white limbs were bathed in purple blood.🖤The edition is 1 of 150 sleeves made during the 2026 Sendb00ks residency at Castello di Rocca SinibaldaThe collection contains works by Okiki Akinfe, Elsa Rouy, Tali Lennox, Jan Melka, Mathilde Albouy and Inès di Folco Jemni Availible on our website with 1/600 editions of Ovid’s MetamorphosesSleeves printed at @mountstreetprinters 1. Sleeve design @elsa.rouy @ranana.t 2,3 Elsa in her studio by @gemmajanes 4 Elsa signed editions5 Boxed up to be smuggled through hand luggage 6 Very very special edition 7 Purple painting 8 Numbering the books9 Elsa buying a chicken to cook for us all 10 Elsa in Studio on iPhone ❤️‍🔥 good times by @gemmajanes

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This season @gemmajanes joins @aeyde as guest editor for Fall/Winter 2026. Across a series of editorials and interviews on Aeyde Magazin, she will explore new seasonal concept “Aeyde Kontinuum,” considering how objects, rituals, and practices are carried through time.Read her first piece, The Prologue, on Aeyde Magazin.Photography @pavelgolik Styling @elinehoyois “Running counter to our millennial Marinetti-esque need for progress and speed, we also hear a slow resurgence of something murmuring beneath the water’s surface, a re-telling of ancient myths, a return to tradition and practices that line us up with the seasons, which engage our hands and demand slowness, for access to the garden— from Proto-Germanic gardaz, an enclosure, a protected space.For all his speed and distilled comprehension, Claude could never capture the weightless, erotic feeling of flying over the rooftops of Moscow, naked on a broomstick with Margarita, 300 pages into Bulgakov’s masterpiece, or thrown from myth to myth in Ovid’s metamorphoses. We experience these surges in our bodies as we attempt to hold time as it passes; these acts which continue, on and on, do so because they remind us that all things are in a constant state of transition and flux; nothing truly dies. Kontinuum comes from continere, a reminder also to hold together, to contain.” by @gemmajanes

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12 days ago

Limpets by @gemmajanes

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Product placement @sendb00ks publication. 600 copies hand numbered with detachable artist sleeves incoming. Ovid’s Metamorphoses book I-III with an introduction by Bianca Pozzi and Gemma Janes. Designed by Rana Tabatabaie and edited by Madeleine Willis. ➿ by @gemmajanes

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22 days ago

@sendb00ks first residency in a 5 year programme. 6 artists respond to Ovid’s Metamorphoses within the scorpion shaped fortress of @castelloroccasinibalda Paintings photographed, printing the sleeves today 🖤 pre-order yours online. Each features an interview with the artist about their rendition of the myth. TEAM 🍇 @biancaapozzi @lenekln @ranana.t by @gemmajanes

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24 days ago

Big day out in Rome, seeing my portrait of @okikiakinfe in @friezeofficial with an interview by @peterdaviesinfo after the insane (if devastating) Miriam Cahn show at @macromuseoroma and a second trip to look at Francesca Woodman photographs at @gagosian 🖤 before taking the bus back to @castelloroccasinibalda for ice cream night. Half way through the first @sendb00ks residency ➿ by @gemmajanes

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a month ago

Progress report @castelloroccasinibalda @sendb00ks It’s been five days and we’re on the mist sea in the mornings, reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the evenings. Working in the studios during the days. Okiki and Elsa are responding to the myth The Crow and the Raven, Tali paints Daphne as the bark reaches up her neck and body, Mathilde captures the hair of nymphs in knots. So much focus and good conversation, feeling very very lucky to be here (and also proud after six months of intense planning)Now on the bus into Rome to see the Metamorphoses exhibition at @galleriaborgheseufficiale Catch up with us on Substack tomorrow evening for a live stream @sendb00ks by @gemmajanes

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Thank you @jouissanceparfums @chng.xmng for inviting me to curate the first shelves of your library. I read most of these books in my late teens and don’t think I would be the same girl now had I not. Featuring a signed copy of Violette Leduc ➿ by @gemmajanes

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