Full Name
Wendy Mocke
Job Title
Writer & Actor
Company
Wendy Mocke
Biography
Wendy Mocke is a Papua New Guinea-born interdisciplinary storyteller and a NIDA Acting graduate. Wendy works across live performance and film as an actor, writer, and visual artist. A former member of the Sydney Theatre Company's Emerging Writers group and a Writing Fellow at Queensland Theatre, Wendy co-adapted the 2025 sold-out season of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for Queensland Theatre.
Her play I am Kegu won the prestigious Griffin Award for 2023 after being shortlisted in 2022 for the Patrick White Playwrights Award and the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award. In 2024, her play REALish was awarded the Sydney Theatre Company’s Patrick White Playwrights' Award, having previously been named runner-up for the Australian Theatre Festival NYC 2023 New Play Award. Wendy is also a recipient of the 2023 Malcolm Robertson Foundation Commission through Malthouse Theatre Company to write her play Kirk's Backyard (My first caucasian play).
In the digital and screen space, Wendy created and wrote the webseries Bad Ancestors, which earned a 2025 AACTA Award nomination for Best Online Drama or Comedy and a 2026 AWGIE Award nomination for Web Series. This follows her work on the 2022 TV series It’s Fine, I’m Fine, which premiered at Canneseries; Wendy wrote three episodes and acted in the series, which was also nominated for an AACTA Award for Best Digital Series or Channel.
As a visual artist, Wendy’s work explores the intersections of identity and history. Her 2021 project m e r i was exhibited at Northsite Contemporary Arts gallery in Cairns and the Brisbane Powerhouse in 2022. Most recently, she was featured in the Invisible Lines exhibition at the Mulgrave Gallery in Cairns and the State of the Art: Reimagining Queensland exhibition at the Rockhampton Museum of Art, where her digital video work Our Patch (2025) was showcased.
One of Wendy's quests as a writer and artist is to make alive what is quiet and asleep in Melanesian stories and unpack the myriad of layers that define Black Pacific Islander identity.
Her play I am Kegu won the prestigious Griffin Award for 2023 after being shortlisted in 2022 for the Patrick White Playwrights Award and the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award. In 2024, her play REALish was awarded the Sydney Theatre Company’s Patrick White Playwrights' Award, having previously been named runner-up for the Australian Theatre Festival NYC 2023 New Play Award. Wendy is also a recipient of the 2023 Malcolm Robertson Foundation Commission through Malthouse Theatre Company to write her play Kirk's Backyard (My first caucasian play).
In the digital and screen space, Wendy created and wrote the webseries Bad Ancestors, which earned a 2025 AACTA Award nomination for Best Online Drama or Comedy and a 2026 AWGIE Award nomination for Web Series. This follows her work on the 2022 TV series It’s Fine, I’m Fine, which premiered at Canneseries; Wendy wrote three episodes and acted in the series, which was also nominated for an AACTA Award for Best Digital Series or Channel.
As a visual artist, Wendy’s work explores the intersections of identity and history. Her 2021 project m e r i was exhibited at Northsite Contemporary Arts gallery in Cairns and the Brisbane Powerhouse in 2022. Most recently, she was featured in the Invisible Lines exhibition at the Mulgrave Gallery in Cairns and the State of the Art: Reimagining Queensland exhibition at the Rockhampton Museum of Art, where her digital video work Our Patch (2025) was showcased.
One of Wendy's quests as a writer and artist is to make alive what is quiet and asleep in Melanesian stories and unpack the myriad of layers that define Black Pacific Islander identity.
Speaking At
