Bayley Mifsud - known by her Aboriginal name, Merindah-Gunya, meaning ‘Beautiful Spirit’ in Peek Whurrong language – has once again brought her storytelling to the Melbourne Mavericks, designing the team's 2025 First Nations Round dress.
Speaking on the significance of the First Nations Round, Mifsud highlighted how sport can provide a platform for cultural education and reconciliation.
“Reconciliation within sport is so powerful because everybody is there for the same purpose and if it means celebrating and educating for one week, all of the supporters are going to do that, so I think it’s a really beautiful way to integrate culture into something that already exists and is already community focussed,” she said.
Mifsud also designed the Mavs’ 2024 First Nations dress. Returning for a second year has allowed her to grow a connection with the players and the club, permitting this year’s dress to tell a new chapter in their evolving story rather than telling the same story with a different artist.
“It’s so much more meaningful when you have built that relationship with the club and then the story can be expanded on. As an Aboriginal person, it’s important that the story continues to develop and get deeper and deeper,” she continued.
This year, Mifsud hosted a workshop with the players. This was important for her as she wanted to educate the players on the meaning behind the symbols they would wear. In this, the team created a group canvas piece, allowing the players to delve into their stories – which she took elements from to put on the final dress design.
There were two key elements within the dress design that emerged from the players.
“The key story element I find the most beautiful is the boomerang as it means bouncing back. It shows the girls' resilience which a lot of them related to and the strength of bouncing back,” Mifsud said.
The design features three boomerangs as well as two meeting places connected by water to represent the players coming together from different places and different upbringings – now sharing an unbreakable bond.
“The players [spoke on] coming from overseas and travelling to become a part of the Mavs," Mifsud said of the water represented on the dress. "The other meaning [of the water] is that most of the places they play is by the water, [so it] shows their connection to the country that they are playing on,” she added.
Through the process of creating the First Nations dress in the past two years, Mifsud feels involved and supported by the Mavs.
“First Nations Round is about celebrating Aboriginal culture and Aboriginal people, [and] I felt celebrated throughout the whole process. The Mavericks actually want to know more and learn more - I couldn’t emphasise the word authentic enough, because that is how it feels,” she said.
Through the First Nations Round, it provides a way to branch into the different aspects of Aboriginal culture - particularly through the inclusion of art - that many people were never taught.
“For so long what people knew was the mad, bad and sad parts of our history. But to learn the culture, which is the art, the music, the dance, there is so much beauty,” said Mifsud.
The Mavs will be wearing Merindah-Gunya’s design this Sunday 25 May at John Cain Arena as they step out to take on the Adelaide Thunderbirds (Tarntanya Karntu).
