Bondi Festival First Nations producer Matilda Brown says a look back at old photos of what is Australia's most famous beach shows something almost unrecognisable.

Before a boundary of restaurants, shopfronts and concrete built up at the edge of the ocean, sprawling sand dunes stretched across the landscape.

It's from those memoryies that Marang, Bondi Festival's culture and knowledge celebrations, takes its name from the local language of the Bidjigal, Gadigal and Birrabirrragal clans, meaning sand dune.

Ms Brown is also Aboriginal Community Development Officer for Waverley Council.

"The Bondi festival team wanted to do something around local culture..they went, yeah, let's do this and let's make it a NAIDOC event," Ms Brown told National Indigenous Times.

Prior to the beginning of NAIDOC Week on Sunday, Marang will host shell art workshops, weaving workshops, bush tucker and native plant workshop presented by Garigal man Northern Beaches company Bush to Bowl co-owner Adam Byrne at the Bondi Pavillion on Saturday, July 1.

By Friday, these events had sold out, but traditional foods, market stalls and Dharug performance group Jannawi are free for passers-by to peruse and get involved.

Local peak organisation for language, cultural and research activities within the La Perouse Aboriginal community, Gujaga Foundation and local elders worked alongside Ms Brown to deliver Marang.

Incorporating the traditions and knowledge of Nations and clans from all across Sydney is at the core of the celebration.

Ms Brown said deferring to elders was a crucial and apt approach within NAIDOC Week's 2023 theme 'For Our Elders'.

"It's important to be inclusive of all Sydney mobs, and that's what we're trying to do," she told National Indigenous Times.

She said it's a great event for families and for the Sydney community to take away something important.

"A sense of appreciation for local culture and just the richness of different mobs in the area who have so much to contribute in terms of being first storytellers, and creators and cultural knowledge holders," Ms Brown said.

Marang takes over Bondi Pavillion on Saturday July 1, from 11am-3pm.