Filmmaker Rachel Perkins launches fundraiser to help family remember MK Turner OAM

A top Territory filmmaker has launched a fundraiser to help unite the family of a respected and celebrated Arrernte Elder to pay their respects after she passed away last week.

Dr MK Turner OAM, 1938-2023, has been remembered as a leading figure in preserving Arrernte language and culture. Picture: Children’s Ground (used with permission)

The family of pioneering Arrernte Elder, interpreter, artist and author MK Turner OAM, who died last week, will unite to pay their respects with a little help from a top NT filmmaker.

Arrernte filmmaker and NAIDOC Week award winner Rachel Perkins has organised a GoFundMe page on behalf of Dr Turner’s family, to help them come together after her passing.

The Anangkere (traditional healer), songwoman, ceremonial leader, language teacher, educator and author died on July 5.

“Your donation will support MK Kemarre Turner’s family to come together at this sad time from remote area communities across the Top End and Central Australia – as she would have wanted,” Ms Perkins wrote.

“We ask you to please give to the family of a woman who gave so much to so many.”

Ms Perkins hopes to raise $15,000 to help pay travel costs for Dr Turner’s family.

The fundraiser had received $2320 in donations as of Monday morning.

https://twitter.com/ChildrensGround/status/1676498028117757953

‘Unique and powerful woman’: Pioneering Elder MK Turner dies

Pioneering Arrernte Elder, interpreter, artist and author MK Turner OAM has been remembered as “a unique and powerful woman” after her death on Wednesday.

Dr Turner was a director and founding Elder at First Nations advocacy group Children’s Ground, which released a statement saying “our hearts are broken”.

“She was a remarkable friend, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother who was loved and respected by all who knew her,” it said.

“She was widely renowned as a cultural professor, leader, author, educator, artist, advocate and loyal friend.

“Her generosity of spirit was widely known within our community and beyond.”

Dr Turner was born in 1938 in Harts Range, about 215km northeast of Alice Springs.

Her family were moved by the government to the Catholic Church’s Little Flower Mission, the Arltunga mission and the Santa Teresa Mission – now the Ltyentye Apurte community – which is where Dr Turner began her formal education.

She spoke several languages including Arrernte, Akarre, Akityarre and English, and worked as a qualified language interpreter as well as teaching cross-cultural communication at the Institute for Aboriginal Development.

She was a founding member of the Irrkelantye Learning Centre, focusing on intergenerational learning for Arrernte people, and a director of the Apmeraltye Ingkerreka project which helped to develop protocols to protect Arrernte intellectual property in relation to native plants.

Dr Turner published two books, Bush foods: Arrernte Foods from Central Australia in 1994 and Iwenhe Tyerrtye: What it Means to be an Aboriginal Person in 2010.

She was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 1997 for service to the Indigenous community of Central Australia, particularly for her efforts to preserve language and culture.

Originally published as Filmmaker Rachel Perkins launches fundraiser to help family remember MK Turner OAM