Genny Petrotta (b. 1990) is an Italian Arbëreshë artist based in Palermo. Her artistic research intertwines poetic reflections on identity, weaving together minor histories and collective imaginaries.
Brinjë më Brinjë (Rib to Rib) is a project that explores the layered history of the Burrneshas — socially recognized female-to-male cross-dressers from the Balkans, most notably formalised in the Kanun, Albania’s customary code. Using Hamlet as a poetic framework, the work deconstructs the exoticized representations perpetuated by Western media, opening a ritual space for reflection on power, gender, and identity.

The work represents the first phase of a larger project that will lead to the production of a film. In this initial stage, it takes the form of a multi-channel video installation developed during a residency at Vila 31, the former residence of Enver Hoxha in Tirana. The main channel brings the gaze of Drande — a Burrnesha from Shëngjin — into dialogue with archaic gestures and dimensions of the unconscious, moving through the villa’s spaces. In the basement, performer Gloria Dorliguzzo reenacts the Gjama e Burrave, an ancient male funeral rite once banned under the communist regime.

The sound composition weaves together Amelia Rosselli’s rewritten version of Hamlet’s monologue — translated into Albanian by Ledia Dushi — with Dushi’s own poetic verses, giving voice to a collective mantra. The work evokes a shared restless sleep, a liminal state in which every body becomes a threshold.
Brinjë më Brinjë (Rib to Rib) premiered at Vila 31 in Tirana x ArtExplora — after a three-month residency — as a video installation, and was selected as a winner of FONDO, a project by Santarcangelo dei Teatri.