A story as Australian as the earth beneath our feet

This Fella, My Memory is the first Aboriginal theatre production created, developed and produced by an Aboriginal company in Sydney in almost 40 years. We first started this project five years ago this month and today we finally bring our piece to the stage as we open the play at Carriageworks. It centres around three women, two Aboriginal and one non-Aboriginal, who are residents in a Redfern women's refuge.

When Toots and Col take Dolly back to her country on the south coast of NSW they naively imagine they will be re-introducing her to her long-lost mob. Instead, they are forced to relive bitter memories, regrettable mistakes and moments of profound loss – but also discover lasting friendship, forgiveness and freedom.

Moogahlin Performing Arts was formed in Redfern in November 2007 by a group of Aboriginal theatre artists and community workers to honour the late Kevin Smith's request, and in memory of the founding members of the National Black Theatre.

We've worked as a team to create this story – seven actors and one director, along with two cultural consultants, devising the piece together. By fusing contemporary western theatre play-building and writing techniques with traditional Aboriginal cultural approaches, such as the oral tradition of shared group storytelling, communal inclusion and equality with respect to cultural practice and protocol, we have had the rare opportunity to collectively imagine and share ownership of a story about the community in which we all live and work.

The original inspiration for this production was born of the three main characters. A large-scale Aboriginal work featuring three women at centre stage is a rare, unique and important event in contemporary Australian theatre. We wanted to give voice to their experience, to understand and learn from them, to pay respect and celebrate all that they are.

The three women in our story believe they have experienced all that life has to throw at them. Yet in spite of their problems the Aunties (as we affectionately call them) are strong, resilient, deeply engaging women with powerful and compelling personalities. They are funny and self-deprecating, feisty and forthright.

All of us, no matter who we are or where we come from, share a common bond in that we are all inextricably connected to the land. This soil, this dirt, this mother earth beneath our feet, holds all of the stories of humankind since time before time. So, as our story lives and breathes in the hearts of the characters in our play, the memory and spirit of our story lives forever in the land.