misery The New Cool – an exhib­i­tion that cel­eb­rates the achieve­ments of some of New Zeal­and’s small but suc­cess­ful cre­at­ive com­pan­ies – star­ted this week at the Dowse Art Gal­lery out in the Hutt, and, hav­ing seen a wee sneak pre­view last week­end, as the final pre­par­a­tions were being put togeth­er, we can highly recom­mend get­ting along for a look­see. We’ll be headed along again, if not just to mar­vel at the lar­ger-than-life Misery doll (sim­il­ar to that pic­tured right) that stands at the entrance to one of the exhib­i­tion rooms.

The exhib­i­tion is all about recog­nising some of the suc­cess of what, in many cases, are just the res­ults of people doing what they love to do best. The com­pan­ies show­cased include Wel­ling­ton’s Loop Aot(ear)oa Record­ings, Sidhe Inter­act­ive and Sticky Pic­tures, as well as busi­nesses from fur­ther afield like Misery, Dawn Raid and Insi­di­ous Fix.

The show runs to the 30th of August.