Hans Gindlesberger’s series of photographs confronts unfortunate realities of life in small town, post-industrial, Middle America, drawing on his own experiences growing up in Pemberville, Ohio. The title, I’m in the Wrong Film, is a colloquialism often said when one feels out of place and uncomfortable in surroundings both familiar and new. Gindlesberger’s photographs possess a fictitious, surreal quality, constructed through an assemblage of real locations and scenery. His photographs are constructed from locations throughout the United States, particularly the Midwest.

With economic hardship and the decline of industrialism, the identities of many rural Midwest and rustbelt boomtowns throughout the United States became shells of their former selves, even while many areas of the nation prospered. Due to urban sprawl, many of these small towns are facing the encroachment of new housing developments. Little is done in most cases to assist the evolution of the small towns further driving a divide in America. In Gindlesberger’s works, a single figure embodying the everyman appears directionless and impotent amidst his surroundings. This man and his struggles represent the plight of those Americans living in regions plagued by a changing identity.