Embroidery and needle work may conjure images of grandmothers and Country Women’s Association fairs, but Maricor and Maricar Manalo's work is anything but twee.
The sisters try to steer away from “that craftiness" you might expect. Their hand-embroidered illustration has earned them a dedicated social media following, commercial and editorial work, and a residency in London funded by the British Council.
“We have more tongue-in-cheek lettering, and something with a bit more of a twist,” Maricor Manalo, one half of the design duo, tells SBS. “Because we were self-taught, we were ok with making mistakes, and not following the perfect technique.” She says that what drew them to embroidery was its personal nature. “You can feel it with every stitch. You can see where the personal touch has come from and the work has gone into it.”
The twins were two when they migrated to Australia from the Philippines with their family, and it was the first house they lived in in Sydney that inspired their love of tactile things. “One of the earliest memories I have is my aunt and my mum would make these paper cut out shapes,” Manalo explains. “I don’t even know what you would call it, but we would cut out shapes and make artwork with it.
“And our love of pattern—we like to joke about it between the two of us, the house that we grew up in was this crazy 1970’s house, where there was a different wallpaper in every room. The carpet was this crazy floral mish-mash of different things. I remember looking into all of the patterns and trying to see different things, and trying to pick out things. It made us visualise things a bit differently. We see things in patterns.”
When other kids in the 1990’s were glued to their Gameboys, the twins improvised. “We didn’t have a lot of stuff,” says Manalo. “We were always taught to be resourceful. If we didn’t have a doll’s house, we would make our own little diorama sets with whatever was around. And games like Tetris, we really loved Lego so we would make our own little Tetris game, creating shapes from the blocks.”
It was these early experiences of creating that inspired the sisters to pursue a career of making things. “We’ve always been drawn to that creative side of using what you’ve got and transforming it into something different,” Manalo says. Working as animators and illustrators in a design production studio, the twins always had an interest in analogue materials. “We were starting at a time when there was a lot of digital work, but we would be the ones still playing with the Xerox machine—photocopying stuff, ripping things up. We illustrate, we use paintbrush and ink, that’s our background—a love of analogue.”
While neither their parents or older sister are in creative professions, the twins aren't the first in their family to pick up a needle and thread. “We didn’t learn sewing from either of our parents and we only found out later that our grandmother was a really good seamstress, and she used to make a lot of my mother, and her sibling’s clothes growing up,” explains Manalo. “Maybe that’s where the interest comes from.”
The personal nature of the embroidery makes their work an easy fit with , a new SBS interactive documentary.
Maricor and Maricar’s embroidery work features throughout SBS interactive documentary 'Nobody Loves You More Than Me'. Source: Supplied
The text-based documentary explores the untold life of Margarete Back, the grandmother of photo-media artist Anne Zahalka, as Zahalka discovers her family’s history in the Holocaust through unseen letters and photographs. Maricor and Maricar’s embroidery work features throughout the project. “Anne [Zahalka] was an artist our high school art teacher introduced us to,” Manalo explains. “A lot of her work focuses on identity and self-identity. We were excited because of that, but also what the project was going to be about. We were intrigued ourselves of what the personal story is about.”
Experience the untold story from Australian photo-artist, Anne Zahalka exploring the life of her grandmother, Margarete Back during WWII. Told through a series of unseen letters and photographs, readers join Anne as she sets off on an emotional journey of discovery to March 1938, Vienna, when Hitler’s army marches into the city. is a new interactive documentary from SBS Australia.
