Hanne Zaruma is no ordinary tech nerd. Rather than coveting the latest iPhone, the Ukrainian artist sees beauty in the gadgets of yesteryear, fastidiously scouring secondhand stores and yard sales in Lviv, her hometown, for retro computers and discarded flip phones. 

 

Zaruma’s Instagram page is filled with these curious technological fashion creations. Think a shoulder bag affixed with the remnants of a Nokia phone or shoes covered with the keys of an old computer fished out from the artist’s storage closet. On her Instagram, she has posted videos of herself “typing” on the computerized accessories with a nearby iPhone seemingly registering her words. (The video on the iPhone is actually prerecorded, a clever optical illusion.) “With my work I want to show that it is not necessary to have money to make art,” says Zaruma, 21, who enlists friends and family to model as well as orchestrating her own selfies.