In 2024, Brendan O’Brien, alongside Sydney-based Noel McKenna and brother Greg, took a roadtrip to Taranaki. The group took a meandering route from Wellington, spending time catching up with folk in Ōpunake, before moving onwards, north around Taranaki Muanga to New Plymouth. For Brendan, the journey brought back memories from 2001, when the three friends had worked together to produce two apostrophes, a small handmade publication, an illustrated poem for Te Whiti o Rongamai and Tohu Kākaki of Parihaka.

The Taranaki visit also served as a solemn reminder of the history and spiritual legacy of Parihaka, as well as a reminder of the deeply affecting exhibition Parihaka: the art of passive resistance, initiated by the City Gallery Wellington, in 2000. The journey supplied Brendan with a direction and outline for the images that are gathered here as Conversation with a mountain.