0:00:02 > 0:00:07This programme contains some strong language
0:00:10 > 0:00:13The sculptor of a house who won this year's Turner Art Prize
0:00:13 > 0:00:17has watched her work being demolished.
0:00:17 > 0:00:19The piece, which has been variously described as
0:00:19 > 0:00:22a post-war masterpiece and a lumpish eyesore,
0:00:22 > 0:00:24was created by injecting an empty
0:00:24 > 0:00:26Edwardian terraced house with concrete,
0:00:26 > 0:00:28and then knocking the walls down.
0:00:29 > 0:00:32Many local people thought it ugly and a waste of money.
0:00:32 > 0:00:36The man who lived in the house for 50 years wasn't sorry to see it go.
0:00:36 > 0:00:38He knows what kind of art he likes, and it isn't this.
0:00:38 > 0:00:41Most of the people around here that I've spoken to,
0:00:41 > 0:00:43and if you see anybody go on the bus, or if you're on a bus,
0:00:43 > 0:00:46they say it's a waste of money, it's just a load of concrete to them.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49If the purpose of modern art is to provoke us to think twice
0:00:49 > 0:00:52about the world we live in, then Rachel Whiteread's house
0:00:52 > 0:00:54has been a triumphant success.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58The artist exploring the new
0:00:58 > 0:01:02is always liable to derision and hostility.
0:01:02 > 0:01:04The new is always shocking.
0:01:08 > 0:01:15The 1993 winner of the Turner Prize is...
0:01:15 > 0:01:16Rachel Whiteread.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30In 1993, the British sculptor Rachel Whiteread
0:01:30 > 0:01:34became the first woman to win the Turner Prize.
0:01:35 > 0:01:39This perceptive, understated artist is celebrated across the world...
0:01:42 > 0:01:45..but Rachel Whiteread has always had a knack
0:01:45 > 0:01:47for courting controversy.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51On the same night that she received the £20,000 Turner Prize,
0:01:51 > 0:01:55she was forced out onto the steps of the Tate
0:01:55 > 0:02:00to accept a £40,000 protest prize for the worst artist in the world.
0:02:03 > 0:02:05I mean, it's quite something
0:02:05 > 0:02:08that the most significant work that you make is about to be demolished,
0:02:08 > 0:02:11that you're the best artist in Britain,
0:02:11 > 0:02:13and the worst on the same day.
0:02:13 > 0:02:15Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:02:15 > 0:02:18And you're better rewarded for being the worst
0:02:18 > 0:02:22- than you are for being the best. - Yes. Yeah.- So, no wonder...
0:02:22 > 0:02:23I'm surprised you're still with us!
0:02:23 > 0:02:25SHE LAUGHS
0:02:35 > 0:02:39Rachel's preparing for the largest exhibition of her work to date.
0:02:41 > 0:02:43MAN HUMS
0:03:00 > 0:03:04I choose things because of their humbleness, really...
0:03:10 > 0:03:13..and they're things that we all have some sort of relationship with.
0:03:18 > 0:03:19It's making space real,
0:03:19 > 0:03:21it's kind of giving space an authority
0:03:21 > 0:03:23that it's never had before.
0:03:34 > 0:03:36It's like that space underneath your desk
0:03:36 > 0:03:37that your legs have always gone under,
0:03:37 > 0:03:39you know, it's suddenly there.
0:03:44 > 0:03:45It's solid.
0:03:50 > 0:03:52I started making these pieces
0:03:52 > 0:03:54with the cast of the space underneath the chair.
0:04:00 > 0:04:02I wasn't satisfied with casting one,
0:04:02 > 0:04:04and I cast about ten different chairs.
0:04:19 > 0:04:22I wanted to make a sort of absence of an audience.
0:04:23 > 0:04:27There's something very architectural about it.
0:04:27 > 0:04:28Something quite sad about it.
0:04:30 > 0:04:32You do feel a real absence.
0:04:36 > 0:04:38There's an element of her work that is highly formal,
0:04:38 > 0:04:40that comes out of minimalism...
0:04:41 > 0:04:46..but she's managed to give a feeling back to minimalism,
0:04:46 > 0:04:50she's allowed it to touch you.
0:04:52 > 0:04:53She's allowed...
0:04:55 > 0:04:57..memory to be both...
0:04:58 > 0:05:00..particular and personal...
0:05:04 > 0:05:05..but also universal.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12I knew throughout college that there was something I was trying to do,
0:05:12 > 0:05:14but I couldn't draw it out properly.
0:05:19 > 0:05:25I had been thinking about my parents, where they had come from,
0:05:25 > 0:05:27the kind of families that they had,
0:05:27 > 0:05:30the kind of furniture that they might have had.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38CHILDREN SHOUT
0:05:38 > 0:05:40When I was a little kid,
0:05:40 > 0:05:43I used to enjoy hiding in my mum and dad's wardrobe.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48I had two older sisters, we'd play hide and seek and stuff,
0:05:48 > 0:05:50but also I think I was bullied a bit.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55It was a little, safe, cosy place that you could go.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59I just remember the smell of the clothes,
0:05:59 > 0:06:02and the furry blackness of the space.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05I wanted to somehow make that real.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10I didn't really know what I was going to do.
0:06:10 > 0:06:11I just thought,
0:06:11 > 0:06:15"I'll make a big plaster cast of this wardrobe and see what happens."
0:06:15 > 0:06:19I shut the doors and just kind of crossed my fingers,
0:06:19 > 0:06:23peeled it off, and I'd made this thing.
0:06:26 > 0:06:27I covered it with black felt.
0:06:30 > 0:06:32I was like, "Wow, actually, that's really interesting."
0:06:32 > 0:06:36The lock's all back to front and where the wood is, it's not...
0:06:38 > 0:06:40..and it just felt right.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43It somehow felt that I'd found my...
0:06:45 > 0:06:47..place, or something. Something fitted together.
0:06:55 > 0:06:58I'd somehow managed to make memories solid.
0:07:05 > 0:07:09Rachel Whiteread was born in Essex in 1963.
0:07:09 > 0:07:11The youngest of three girls.
0:07:12 > 0:07:17Her father was a geography teacher, and her mother an artist.
0:07:18 > 0:07:20It was a kind of nurturing household...
0:07:22 > 0:07:25..but also, I would say, later in life,
0:07:25 > 0:07:29I've realised probably a bit neglectful, as well,
0:07:29 > 0:07:33in terms of, erm, just letting us get on with
0:07:33 > 0:07:35what the hell we wanted to do, really.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38Which was great in lots of ways.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42But I think it was, you know,
0:07:42 > 0:07:45there were times that were quite tough in our family.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49- What kind of tough? - Er, my parents, you know,
0:07:49 > 0:07:53had moments of not really getting on so well.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56My mum had some...
0:07:56 > 0:07:59you know, she dealt with depression quite a lot.
0:08:01 > 0:08:03There were trials, definitely.
0:08:03 > 0:08:08It wasn't a sort of idyllic sort of unflawed childhood.
0:08:09 > 0:08:11Tell me about your mum, then.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14Being a woman artist at that time, that was quite unusual.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19She was a big character, my mum, and she was...
0:08:19 > 0:08:22People, if they met her, they remembered her, you know?
0:08:22 > 0:08:24She was a feminist?
0:08:24 > 0:08:27Yeah, I think she was certainly a strong voice
0:08:27 > 0:08:29and she was quite eccentric,
0:08:29 > 0:08:33and she wasn't going to be told that she couldn't do something.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37There was a show called the Women's Images Of Men
0:08:37 > 0:08:41which was shown, selected in our basement.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45I'd come home from school and make coffee for all these rabid feminists
0:08:45 > 0:08:49who were all shouting at each other in the basement.
0:08:49 > 0:08:51There was some terrible work.
0:08:51 > 0:08:52Even I remember, as a kid,
0:08:52 > 0:08:55looking at this thing and thinking, "Blimey!"
0:08:56 > 0:08:59But there were some great things, as well.
0:09:00 > 0:09:04I always feel very grateful to her and her generation
0:09:04 > 0:09:06for having stuck their necks out
0:09:06 > 0:09:10to make it possible for my generation to do what we do.
0:09:17 > 0:09:21I'm also thinking about your father who was a geographer.
0:09:23 > 0:09:28When I was a little kid, our back garden was a massive field,
0:09:28 > 0:09:31and beyond the back garden there was a Roman road...
0:09:32 > 0:09:36..which I always remember as being one of the most exciting things -
0:09:36 > 0:09:39and I'd often walk along the Roman road with my dad
0:09:39 > 0:09:41and think about what had happened there.
0:09:42 > 0:09:45And he'd go, "This is a Roman brick!"
0:09:45 > 0:09:47And be incredibly excited about it.
0:09:49 > 0:09:53He was interested in making the stuff of the world alive.
0:10:03 > 0:10:08We'd go on these sort of family Sundays to Victorian waste tips,
0:10:08 > 0:10:10and get entire dinner services.
0:10:16 > 0:10:18All this stuff you'd just dig out
0:10:18 > 0:10:21and you'd go to the guy at the end and say, "How much for this lot?"
0:10:21 > 0:10:24And he'd say, "Well, it'll be three quid."
0:10:24 > 0:10:27You'd get an entire dinner service for £3!
0:10:27 > 0:10:32I must say, it's either something in your DNA, or...
0:10:32 > 0:10:34I mean, in some families,
0:10:34 > 0:10:38picking up rubbish from Victorian tips and bringing them home...
0:10:38 > 0:10:41- And eating off them! - And eating off them,
0:10:41 > 0:10:44would not necessarily be a normal part of family life.
0:10:44 > 0:10:47Oh, it was day-to-day with us. Certainly, yeah.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52So, all of this stuff, somehow, is sort of, in my...
0:10:52 > 0:10:54I kind of feel it and live it,
0:10:54 > 0:10:57and somehow it comes back into what I do.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16I kind of recall that your father laid the cement floor
0:11:16 > 0:11:17in your mother's studio.
0:11:17 > 0:11:18Yes, and I helped.
0:11:22 > 0:11:26I would mix concrete and carry buckets of concrete down.
0:11:26 > 0:11:27I was only ten or something.
0:11:30 > 0:11:32Yeah.
0:11:32 > 0:11:33But I really enjoyed doing it.
0:11:38 > 0:11:42My dad was no real genius at making things.
0:11:46 > 0:11:48His father had been a carpenter.
0:11:48 > 0:11:51He had some sort of skill he'd learned from his dad.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05It was very much the thing that I did with my father.
0:12:09 > 0:12:12Was it inevitable that that was what you were going to do,
0:12:12 > 0:12:14- you were going to be an artist? - No, not at all.
0:12:14 > 0:12:16And it was because of my mum.
0:12:16 > 0:12:18You know, I just didn't want to do what she did.
0:12:18 > 0:12:20And once I started...
0:12:20 > 0:12:22- You didn't want to? - Didn't want to, no.
0:12:22 > 0:12:23So, you were resisting, in other words?
0:12:23 > 0:12:26I was resisting. I thought, "What am I doing?
0:12:26 > 0:12:28"Just go to art school, this is what you want to do,
0:12:28 > 0:12:30"why are you pretending you don't?"
0:12:40 > 0:12:43So, you're 18 years old, you leave home,
0:12:43 > 0:12:45and then you go to Brighton to study at the poly.
0:12:47 > 0:12:49I notice you're not making sculpture.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52Yeah. When I was at Brighton, I painted,
0:12:52 > 0:12:55"properly" painted in my first year.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58Second year, I was sort of getting bored
0:12:58 > 0:13:00of the edges of paper and canvas.
0:13:00 > 0:13:03Explain this to me - you were bored with the edges?
0:13:03 > 0:13:06I'd wanted to go further than the edge of something.
0:13:06 > 0:13:11So, I'd be like, ooh, I don't like the fact that that stops there.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14So, I'd then start making things and cutting things out.
0:13:14 > 0:13:16And then I got interested in the sculpture department.
0:13:16 > 0:13:21I sort of hijacked them, and started working down there, as well.
0:13:21 > 0:13:25And I just... I was one of those students that -
0:13:25 > 0:13:28I decided to work across all disciplines,
0:13:28 > 0:13:32which was exactly what the art school didn't like at that point.
0:13:37 > 0:13:39It's a great town to be at college.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42I'd go for these walks on the beach
0:13:42 > 0:13:45and I'd pick up what I'd call "found lines."
0:13:50 > 0:13:54They were always bits of metal, bits of rubber tyre and all this stuff,
0:13:54 > 0:13:56and I'd just constantly be picking it up
0:13:56 > 0:13:58and putting it in my panniers on my bike
0:13:58 > 0:14:01and cycling it back to the studio and making things with it.
0:14:03 > 0:14:07That's really where I first started to think about just using
0:14:07 > 0:14:09strange bits and bobs that I found.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17I would very often go for the ugly object,
0:14:17 > 0:14:22the thing that no-one else would want, that would be my preference.
0:14:23 > 0:14:24Yeah.
0:14:27 > 0:14:33The Tate Exhibition will trace Rachel's work over 30 years,
0:14:33 > 0:14:38starting with four pieces she made for her first solo show in 1988.
0:14:42 > 0:14:46Everything that I've always used has been second-hand.
0:14:47 > 0:14:49And there's nothing more seedy, really,
0:14:49 > 0:14:51than a second-hand hot water bottle.
0:14:51 > 0:14:52WATER FLOWS
0:14:56 > 0:14:58The process of filling a hot water bottle
0:14:58 > 0:15:02is very, sort of, emotional and familiar.
0:15:03 > 0:15:08If we've been fortunate enough to have a relatively happy childhood
0:15:08 > 0:15:11and family life, then these things are all part of our history.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18These things really do have the essence of us on them, somehow.
0:15:28 > 0:15:32Casting the space inside a cupboard, under a bed -
0:15:32 > 0:15:34it's interesting that all this happened at a time
0:15:34 > 0:15:36when your father was terminally ill.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42There was definitely a sadness within me
0:15:42 > 0:15:44that I knew my father was dying.
0:15:45 > 0:15:48You know, he was gradually slipping away.
0:15:49 > 0:15:50A lot of the work had been...
0:15:53 > 0:15:56..incubating, really, throughout that time.
0:15:56 > 0:15:59The piece that was most to do with that
0:15:59 > 0:16:03was the cast of the space underneath the bed.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09People have said it was the bed that I was born in,
0:16:09 > 0:16:11it was the bed that my father died in, it was, you know,
0:16:11 > 0:16:13everyone wants to have a, you know...
0:16:13 > 0:16:15It was a bed.
0:16:17 > 0:16:22That moved me, that idea, because, actually, I do recall...
0:16:22 > 0:16:24- Hiding?- Hiding under a bed -
0:16:24 > 0:16:28and it's a very early memory for just about everyone.
0:16:28 > 0:16:30And it's the claustrophobia,
0:16:30 > 0:16:34it's the smell of the hessian, it's the dust.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36It's the space you never think about.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41Rachel had been channelling her energy
0:16:41 > 0:16:43into small neglected objects...
0:16:44 > 0:16:47..but for her next project, Ghost,
0:16:47 > 0:16:50she looked beyond the object to the space that surrounds it.
0:16:53 > 0:16:56It's like every room I've lived in, you know,
0:16:56 > 0:16:58it's like the room I was born in...
0:17:00 > 0:17:03..and when I left home and moved to Brighton, I had...
0:17:03 > 0:17:07It was virtually exactly the same as the first room I had
0:17:07 > 0:17:09when I left home.
0:17:09 > 0:17:12There had to be a fireplace,
0:17:12 > 0:17:17a door, window, cornicing and skirting board.
0:17:17 > 0:17:19There were these five elements that it had to have.
0:17:22 > 0:17:24Working over a period of 18 months,
0:17:24 > 0:17:28Rachel cast the entire room in plaster panels,
0:17:28 > 0:17:30and rebuilt it in her studio,
0:17:30 > 0:17:34so that the edges and surfaces were now on the outside.
0:17:57 > 0:18:01It was, she said, as if she had mummified the air inside the room.
0:18:05 > 0:18:08Ghost says everything,
0:18:08 > 0:18:12and Ghost is the linchpin in the development
0:18:12 > 0:18:14of what sculpture can do.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21Making material out of the immaterial,
0:18:21 > 0:18:27making the intimate monumental, making the private palpable.
0:18:29 > 0:18:36That somehow here is this space that has become an object.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40I mean, that itself is an extraordinary idea.
0:18:43 > 0:18:45I've been using plaster for years, now.
0:18:45 > 0:18:47It's incredibly sensitive
0:18:47 > 0:18:50and will pick up the minutest detail of colour.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54So, the surface of it, to me, feels like a kind of fresco.
0:18:58 > 0:19:01It's picking up traces of former lives
0:19:01 > 0:19:02of the people that lived in there.
0:19:07 > 0:19:14We think of the rooms that we live and eat and talk and die in
0:19:14 > 0:19:17as a result of the confrontation with Ghost.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23Ghost was bought by Charles Saatchi.
0:19:23 > 0:19:27He showed it alongside Damien Hirst's Shark
0:19:27 > 0:19:31in a small show that first coined the term YBAs.
0:19:31 > 0:19:33Young British Artists.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41Rachel emerged at the very moment when...
0:19:42 > 0:19:48..the phrase young British artists was applied to every artist
0:19:48 > 0:19:51aged 25-35 who was working in Britain...
0:19:53 > 0:19:58..but I've always felt that she was in a slightly different position
0:19:58 > 0:20:01from - even Sarah Lucas, and definitely Damian.
0:20:03 > 0:20:07Somehow, she was always slightly apart.
0:20:07 > 0:20:08LAUGHTER
0:20:10 > 0:20:13So, what do you have in common? What made you decide to work together?
0:20:13 > 0:20:14- Well...- We both... One big thing.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17We both lost our virginity in Margate.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20We were all a group, we were all friends, we all knew each other.
0:20:24 > 0:20:27LAUGHTER
0:20:27 > 0:20:30We'd been swimming in London
0:20:30 > 0:20:33and Rachel and a few other people came round to my flat
0:20:33 > 0:20:37about seven o'clock in the morning and we carried on drinking...
0:20:39 > 0:20:43..and Rachel put her underwear over the back of a chair,
0:20:43 > 0:20:45and it dried completely...
0:20:47 > 0:20:48..as if it was in plaster...
0:20:48 > 0:20:52..and I always remember thinking that I had a small Rachel Whiteread.
0:20:54 > 0:20:56But Rachel's a really good example
0:20:56 > 0:20:58of why the YBA thing wasn't actually genuine and real.
0:21:01 > 0:21:02It was just a label.
0:21:03 > 0:21:05Rachel's work is poetic, has clarity,
0:21:05 > 0:21:08and it's always been very, very mature.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14The success of Ghost brought Rachel the backing she needed
0:21:14 > 0:21:16to push her idea further.
0:21:17 > 0:21:23This time, she wanted to cast not just one room but an entire house.
0:21:26 > 0:21:28Eventually, this place came up.
0:21:28 > 0:21:32I was just absolutely blown away by the site
0:21:32 > 0:21:35and the fact that it was on this sort of green corridor.
0:21:35 > 0:21:38At the end of the street you could see Canary Wharf
0:21:38 > 0:21:44which had been Thatcher's dream that had been built in the '80s.
0:21:44 > 0:21:46So it always had that sort of political edge to it.
0:21:49 > 0:21:53I'd never done anything quite like that before on that scale.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58Rachel worked with a small team stripping the walls,
0:21:58 > 0:22:00sealing up all the gaps,
0:22:00 > 0:22:05digging new foundations so that the house became a mould to be cast.
0:22:06 > 0:22:10It wasn't, as some people suggested, a case of making a house
0:22:10 > 0:22:13by pouring concrete down the chimney
0:22:13 > 0:22:17or squirting it through the letterbox.
0:22:17 > 0:22:22There are enormous technical challenges in a work of that scale.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26The method they adopted was at the time being developed
0:22:26 > 0:22:28to build the Channel Tunnel.
0:22:28 > 0:22:31They constructed the inner walls
0:22:31 > 0:22:33using a high velocity concrete spray.
0:22:39 > 0:22:41It was beyond a challenge.
0:22:41 > 0:22:43No-one's ever done anything like that...
0:22:45 > 0:22:46..and she was really young then -
0:22:46 > 0:22:50she was only about 29 when she took that project on.
0:22:50 > 0:22:52I really had utmost respect for her.
0:22:55 > 0:22:58It had taken three months,
0:22:58 > 0:23:02but, gradually, the structure of the original house was peeled away.
0:23:04 > 0:23:09On the 24th of October 1993, the sculpture was revealed.
0:23:14 > 0:23:15You saw this lone...
0:23:16 > 0:23:21..mid-terraced house, the entire terrace had gone.
0:23:23 > 0:23:25And there was a kind of monument
0:23:25 > 0:23:30which was also the kind of cast of the place that had been there.
0:23:33 > 0:23:35You imagine the life that went on.
0:23:37 > 0:23:40The shouts from upper windows for the kids to come in,
0:23:40 > 0:23:41time for their tea.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49The daily business of going out to work and coming home again.
0:23:52 > 0:23:53Up the front steps.
0:23:56 > 0:23:58It attracted crowds.
0:24:04 > 0:24:07People flew into London particularly to see it.
0:24:07 > 0:24:09They would get in a cab at Heathrow
0:24:09 > 0:24:10and say, "Take me to House,"
0:24:10 > 0:24:13and the cabbies would know exactly where it was...
0:24:16 > 0:24:20..but, at the same time, there was a sort of animosity towards it.
0:24:24 > 0:24:27The fact that something that was treated with such respect
0:24:27 > 0:24:30could have been made, really,
0:24:30 > 0:24:34on the back of an ordinary East End working class house
0:24:34 > 0:24:37struck some people as insulting, in some way.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40They felt that, like a lot of contemporary art,
0:24:40 > 0:24:42it was pulling the wool over their eyes.
0:24:44 > 0:24:47I do like sculpture that looks like what it's supposed to.
0:24:47 > 0:24:49I quite like this behind us.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52I certainly don't think it would be improved by having it inside out.
0:24:52 > 0:24:56She told me that she sat at the end of the road
0:24:56 > 0:24:59in a car with a newspaper in front of her face
0:24:59 > 0:25:01with a couple of holes poked in it
0:25:01 > 0:25:04so she could watch anonymously what was happening -
0:25:04 > 0:25:06and I think she was pleased, obviously,
0:25:06 > 0:25:10but aghast and perhaps a bit terrified
0:25:10 > 0:25:12of the kinds of attention it had.
0:25:18 > 0:25:22Rachel had been nominated for the Turner Prize that year,
0:25:22 > 0:25:24but the whole thing would come to a head
0:25:24 > 0:25:26on the very day of the awards ceremony.
0:25:30 > 0:25:3223rd of November, 1993.
0:25:32 > 0:25:34- Tell me about it.- Oh, gosh.
0:25:34 > 0:25:36Yes, what a day that was.
0:25:37 > 0:25:38Yeah...
0:25:39 > 0:25:4123rd of November.
0:25:41 > 0:25:42Yeah, so, I woke up in the morning.
0:25:44 > 0:25:45Didn't really think about much
0:25:45 > 0:25:49except, "It's the Turner Prize tonight, wonder what'll happen?"
0:25:49 > 0:25:52And the phone rings and it is this KLF bunch
0:25:52 > 0:25:58who decided that I've been voted the worst artist in the world.
0:25:58 > 0:25:59In the weeks leading up to this,
0:25:59 > 0:26:01a group calling themselves
0:26:01 > 0:26:04the K Foundation had taken out a full page
0:26:04 > 0:26:06advert in The Sun asking readers
0:26:06 > 0:26:09to vote for the worst artist in the world.
0:26:09 > 0:26:13Bearing in mind the Turner Prize was £20,000,
0:26:13 > 0:26:17they were giving me £40,000 and, if I refused to receive it,
0:26:17 > 0:26:20- they were going to burn it. - They were going to burn it?
0:26:20 > 0:26:22They were going to burn it, burn the money,
0:26:22 > 0:26:24and it was going to be my fault.
0:26:24 > 0:26:27And I was, like, "You fuckers," you know?
0:26:27 > 0:26:28I decided,
0:26:28 > 0:26:32after a lot of umming and ahing that I would take the money
0:26:32 > 0:26:33but I would give it away.
0:26:38 > 0:26:39All of this was going on,
0:26:39 > 0:26:42I was beginning to get a bit of a nervous wreck.
0:26:43 > 0:26:50The 1993 winner of the Turner prize, Rachel Whiteread.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58I had to then go and deal with the fucking KLF.
0:26:59 > 0:27:01Sorry...
0:27:01 > 0:27:03You're allowed to say that.
0:27:03 > 0:27:05I think it's perfectly appropriate...
0:27:05 > 0:27:07And it was just, like, oh, my God,
0:27:07 > 0:27:10I just felt like my head was going to explode.
0:27:23 > 0:27:27And on that same night when she won the Turner prize
0:27:27 > 0:27:28a vote was taking place
0:27:28 > 0:27:33to decide whether House would be granted a stay of execution
0:27:33 > 0:27:35to spare it from planned demolition.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42Making House was really stressful,
0:27:42 > 0:27:44and then everything that went with it was very stressful,
0:27:44 > 0:27:47and the fact that I never really saw it, in a way,
0:27:47 > 0:27:52because I made it and then there was this whole circus around it,
0:27:52 > 0:27:53and then we pulled it down.
0:27:55 > 0:27:57I was there for the demolition.
0:27:57 > 0:27:59- How was it? - Quite heartbreaking, really.
0:28:01 > 0:28:03Yeah.
0:28:03 > 0:28:04Heartbreaking.
0:28:07 > 0:28:09I was quite unwell for a few months afterwards.
0:28:18 > 0:28:22I think it undoubtedly destabilised her
0:28:22 > 0:28:25while also catapulting her forward
0:28:25 > 0:28:27in terms of an international reputation.
0:28:39 > 0:28:43The Berlin Wall fell in the final weeks of 1989.
0:28:48 > 0:28:52Soon after, Rachel and her husband, the artist Marcus Taylor,
0:28:52 > 0:28:54came to live in the city.
0:28:55 > 0:28:58A lot of these Germans had moved over there.
0:28:58 > 0:29:00There was... There was unrest.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05People were suspicious of one another, I would say...
0:29:08 > 0:29:11..and it made me think about what it must have been like,
0:29:11 > 0:29:12you know, during the war.
0:29:18 > 0:29:23I'd spent a lot of time going to concentration camps and cemeteries,
0:29:23 > 0:29:25and just really thinking about it.
0:29:29 > 0:29:33In 1996, Rachel entered a competition
0:29:33 > 0:29:37to design a Holocaust memorial for the city of Vienna.
0:29:39 > 0:29:42Her idea then was a sort of ghost library,
0:29:42 > 0:29:47rows of books cast in concrete with their spines turned inwards.
0:29:52 > 0:29:54Books written, books unwritten,
0:29:54 > 0:29:57books never able to be written because their authors were murdered.
0:30:00 > 0:30:02She chose a library,
0:30:02 > 0:30:03a place of knowledge.
0:30:10 > 0:30:11And it won.
0:30:13 > 0:30:14How did you feel?
0:30:16 > 0:30:17Totally terrified.
0:30:18 > 0:30:21Ten people firing questions at me,
0:30:21 > 0:30:23saying things like, "It looks like a bunker!"
0:30:24 > 0:30:27Really, does it? I didn't realise.
0:30:27 > 0:30:31Knowing full well that that's exactly what I was trying to make,
0:30:31 > 0:30:33something that was as aggressive as that.
0:30:34 > 0:30:36They needed something aggressive there.
0:30:36 > 0:30:40If it had been something polite,
0:30:40 > 0:30:41it wouldn't have worked.
0:30:43 > 0:30:46One of the jurors was Simon Wiesenthal,
0:30:46 > 0:30:50who had spent years campaigning for a Holocaust memorial in Vienna.
0:30:52 > 0:30:55He was very proud of what he thought was this young Jewess
0:30:55 > 0:30:58who was going to be making this Holocaust memorial...
0:30:59 > 0:31:03..and there was this big stack of TV and news people,
0:31:03 > 0:31:06everyone with cameras, and he had his arm around me,
0:31:06 > 0:31:10and they said, "Rachel, Rachel, are you Jewish?"
0:31:10 > 0:31:13And I said, "No."
0:31:13 > 0:31:15And his arm fell from my side.
0:31:19 > 0:31:23It was a very male dominated group of people,
0:31:23 > 0:31:26and I don't think they had ever met somebody like Rachel.
0:31:28 > 0:31:30This is then set into the prefab structure.
0:31:30 > 0:31:34You pour around it and then you just remove the ceiling rose,
0:31:34 > 0:31:35- and that way...- No, no.- Why not?
0:31:37 > 0:31:38HE SPEAKS GERMAN
0:31:42 > 0:31:46There would be a surface full of bubbles that way.
0:31:46 > 0:31:51This could be made in rubber, with air holes going through it.
0:31:51 > 0:31:54HE SPEAKS GERMAN
0:31:57 > 0:32:00Yeah, but I've just made a suggestion,
0:32:00 > 0:32:02and you nodded, and you went like that,
0:32:02 > 0:32:04so I don't know how we're standing.
0:32:05 > 0:32:10Often there was a Kafkaesque series of meetings.
0:32:10 > 0:32:13They just seemed to go on endlessly
0:32:13 > 0:32:15without decisions being made.
0:32:15 > 0:32:19I mean, you're looking at me as if I'm a kind of madwoman.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23I cast all the time.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25I've been casting for ten years in every material
0:32:25 > 0:32:26you can possibly think of.
0:32:26 > 0:32:29I'm not an idiot. I know what I'm talking about.
0:32:29 > 0:32:33While Rachel held her ground over the technical processes,
0:32:33 > 0:32:36there were still more obstacles to come.
0:32:36 > 0:32:41The piece faced opposition from neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers -
0:32:41 > 0:32:43but also from the Jewish community in Vienna
0:32:43 > 0:32:46who didn't want the sculpture to be built
0:32:46 > 0:32:48on the site of a former synagogue.
0:32:49 > 0:32:51By the end of 1996,
0:32:51 > 0:32:54it didn't seem that the memorial would ever be built.
0:33:01 > 0:33:04The theme of the book continued to haunt Rachel
0:33:04 > 0:33:07as she diverted her energy in a new direction.
0:33:10 > 0:33:12I've been neurotic in making book things
0:33:12 > 0:33:15because I haven't been able to finish it in Vienna.
0:33:25 > 0:33:28You know, you get results quickly.
0:33:30 > 0:33:32Well, I can make the whole thing from start to finish
0:33:32 > 0:33:34in three months,
0:33:34 > 0:33:37not three years, or 30 years, or however long it might take.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41You know, I just think it's unforgivable how they've...
0:33:43 > 0:33:45..treated me over there, really.
0:33:47 > 0:33:49It was exhausting for her...
0:33:50 > 0:33:54..and, for quite some time afterwards, even...
0:33:56 > 0:33:59..the word Vienna was filled with dread for her.
0:34:13 > 0:34:16When, in the summer of 1997,
0:34:16 > 0:34:20Rachel took on the British pavilion in the Venice Biennale,
0:34:20 > 0:34:24she showed a room filled with absent books.
0:34:37 > 0:34:40MAN SINGS IN OWN LANGUAGE
0:35:13 > 0:35:16It had been five years in the making,
0:35:16 > 0:35:19but Rachel Whiteread's Holocaust memorial
0:35:19 > 0:35:21had finally won over its detractors,
0:35:21 > 0:35:24including Simon Wiesenthal.
0:35:46 > 0:35:53Right in the heart of the city of Vienna you have this oasis of calm,
0:35:53 > 0:35:57of silence, of contemplation, of reflection,
0:35:57 > 0:36:01and it is completely carried by this memorial.
0:36:05 > 0:36:07I'm really proud that it's there.
0:36:09 > 0:36:11It is doing its job very well...
0:36:13 > 0:36:16..but it wasn't a joyful experience.
0:36:26 > 0:36:30I don't think one should be happy about making something like that.
0:36:33 > 0:36:35It's a really big deal,
0:36:35 > 0:36:37and it's...
0:36:39 > 0:36:40..kind of...
0:36:44 > 0:36:46Takes a lot out of you, you know?
0:36:48 > 0:36:49You just have to be...
0:36:51 > 0:36:54..you know, well emotionally equipped to do something like that.
0:36:56 > 0:36:58And, over the years, I've done my fair share of...
0:36:59 > 0:37:01..sculptures that have...
0:37:02 > 0:37:05..taken a lot out of me, to be honest. You know, and...
0:37:06 > 0:37:09..made me quite unwell.
0:37:12 > 0:37:16You know, sort of, a bit too sensitive, sometimes,
0:37:16 > 0:37:17for these things.
0:37:21 > 0:37:23You know, they can leave big scars.
0:37:41 > 0:37:45Far beyond the public gaze, Rachel has been working
0:37:45 > 0:37:48with casts of sheds, huts and cabins
0:37:48 > 0:37:52in a series of works she calls Shy Sculptures.
0:38:01 > 0:38:06They exist more as mental sculptures than physical ones.
0:38:06 > 0:38:08We imagine their presence.
0:38:12 > 0:38:15Part of the reason for seeing the pieces is the journey
0:38:15 > 0:38:18and the way of getting there and the anticipation...
0:38:19 > 0:38:21..and the slowness of the work.
0:38:40 > 0:38:42We all want, now, the sort of instant hit
0:38:42 > 0:38:44for everything that we see and do.
0:38:51 > 0:38:53I wanted it to be a slow version of the work.
0:39:07 > 0:39:11I do very much like the idea that somewhere in the Mojave desert
0:39:11 > 0:39:14is a Rachel Whiteread sculpture
0:39:14 > 0:39:17that hardly anyone will ever see.
0:39:43 > 0:39:45The series of Shy Sculptures,
0:39:45 > 0:39:48they are a natural progression for Rachel.
0:39:53 > 0:39:59Cabin on Governors Island looks over the scene of 9/11,
0:39:59 > 0:40:03so it is both a very gentle sculpture,
0:40:03 > 0:40:07a Shy Sculpture sitting in a very unassuming landscape
0:40:07 > 0:40:10that you might come across,
0:40:10 > 0:40:13but the position she has chosen is quite resonant...
0:40:14 > 0:40:18..and, I think, probably as close as she would want to come
0:40:18 > 0:40:21to making an actual monument to 9/11.
0:40:26 > 0:40:29It is situated looking straight out to the site
0:40:29 > 0:40:32of where the twin towers were.
0:40:33 > 0:40:35When we actually placed the work there,
0:40:35 > 0:40:39I really had a very strange sort of out of body moment.
0:40:42 > 0:40:46I knew what I was doing but once we actually put it there, it was like,
0:40:46 > 0:40:49"Fuck, you know, this is quite something, actually."
0:40:51 > 0:40:53SHIP HORN SOUNDS
0:41:00 > 0:41:03This wasn't the first time that Rachel had made work
0:41:03 > 0:41:05in response to the streets of New York.
0:41:12 > 0:41:14Soon after making House,
0:41:14 > 0:41:18I was walking around New York feeling a little bit wary,
0:41:18 > 0:41:23shall we say, after having had this amazing sort of shitstorm
0:41:23 > 0:41:25in London around House.
0:41:25 > 0:41:28I wasn't really ready for doing the same thing in New York...
0:41:30 > 0:41:34..and I just couldn't contend with the street in that way,
0:41:34 > 0:41:36and eventually just started looking up.
0:41:39 > 0:41:42I had always noticed the water towers.
0:41:43 > 0:41:45It was one of the things that struck me.
0:41:47 > 0:41:49I remember sort of thinking about them
0:41:49 > 0:41:51as part of the furniture of New York...
0:41:54 > 0:41:57..and then I thought, "Wow, if you cast that in resin,
0:41:57 > 0:41:59"you could make, like, this jewel, like a diamond
0:41:59 > 0:42:02"that pings in the sky there."
0:42:25 > 0:42:28Back in London in 2001,
0:42:28 > 0:42:31faced with the prospect of making a temporary sculpture
0:42:31 > 0:42:34to sit on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square,
0:42:34 > 0:42:38Rachel used the same transparent resin
0:42:38 > 0:42:42to subvert the very idea of a monument.
0:42:42 > 0:42:43When I was asked to do it,
0:42:43 > 0:42:46I was just wanting to make something that was a pause
0:42:46 > 0:42:48in the middle of London.
0:42:50 > 0:42:52It is a very complex and expensive pause.
0:42:57 > 0:42:58Why was it so difficult?
0:42:59 > 0:43:01No-one had ever cast something
0:43:01 > 0:43:03that big in resin, so you just didn't quite
0:43:03 > 0:43:05know what was going to happen to it.
0:43:05 > 0:43:07The heat generated whilst making the material
0:43:07 > 0:43:09makes it very unpredictable.
0:43:11 > 0:43:14Endless problems - it was just a pain to make.
0:43:16 > 0:43:18I have never seen a crack in any of our stuff...
0:43:19 > 0:43:21..before today.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24So, when you first said crack, there's a crack, I thought crack?
0:43:24 > 0:43:26That doesn't look cracked.
0:43:26 > 0:43:28But I've never done anything like this, so...
0:43:30 > 0:43:32MAN HUMS
0:43:43 > 0:43:46If you have been wondering what is being kept under wraps
0:43:46 > 0:43:49in Trafalgar Square over the weekend - and haven't we all? -
0:43:49 > 0:43:52today the secret was revealed. A new piece of public art.
0:43:52 > 0:43:53It is designed to bring a moment of peace
0:43:53 > 0:43:55to the bustle of Central London,
0:43:55 > 0:43:57it is also the biggest object ever made from resin.
0:43:59 > 0:44:02It weighs 11 tonnes and it is a mirror image
0:44:02 > 0:44:04of the plinth it stands on.
0:44:09 > 0:44:11But not everyone was impressed.
0:44:14 > 0:44:18I never intended to become an artist that made public monuments.
0:44:20 > 0:44:22It's just happened that way.
0:44:26 > 0:44:27The challenge that we have,
0:44:27 > 0:44:32and I think Rachel's work with the Fourth Plinth did it so perfectly,
0:44:32 > 0:44:36is to find an appropriate replacement for
0:44:36 > 0:44:38the plinth monument...
0:44:40 > 0:44:43..while not doing the job, I think, as it were,
0:44:43 > 0:44:45it's an extraordinary hinge
0:44:45 > 0:44:48that makes the question vital
0:44:48 > 0:44:50and immediate and apparent.
0:44:52 > 0:44:56How do we make things that can be the focus for hope and fear?
0:44:58 > 0:45:01Our collective idea
0:45:01 > 0:45:03of what the future might be.
0:45:07 > 0:45:12Perhaps in that transparent, open upper...
0:45:13 > 0:45:20..plinth, now rendered weightless and luminous...
0:45:22 > 0:45:25..those sort of hopes are encapsulated.
0:45:57 > 0:46:00Now, at the same time that you are making these public sculptures,
0:46:00 > 0:46:02you're also making casts of your own home,
0:46:02 > 0:46:04the building you were living in.
0:46:06 > 0:46:09We found this building in Shoreditch,
0:46:09 > 0:46:12it had originally been a Christian church and then it was a synagogue,
0:46:12 > 0:46:15then it was a textiles warehouse.
0:46:15 > 0:46:17It was one of those buildings
0:46:17 > 0:46:20that had just been left for years and years and years,
0:46:20 > 0:46:23no-one had really paid it any notice whatsoever -
0:46:23 > 0:46:26and I was interested in the sort of nothing architecture,
0:46:26 > 0:46:28the nothingness of it, really.
0:46:28 > 0:46:31And I wanted to make that concrete.
0:46:32 > 0:46:38So, what I'm standing in now is the staircase that is going to be cast.
0:46:38 > 0:46:43I had to make decisions about how high it was, where walls ended,
0:46:43 > 0:46:45where things began, where things stopped.
0:46:45 > 0:46:48So this is essentially what this is,
0:46:48 > 0:46:51this will be blocked off and this area will be blocked off
0:46:51 > 0:46:56so this will be a big, white solid going down here,
0:46:56 > 0:46:59around the corner and then some spaces underneath it
0:46:59 > 0:47:00will also be cast.
0:47:08 > 0:47:09When I made House,
0:47:09 > 0:47:13the one part of House that I was unhappy with
0:47:13 > 0:47:16was the staircase, because when I cast it,
0:47:16 > 0:47:18what I had actually done was cast around it,
0:47:18 > 0:47:21and you just had this sort of wooden spine.
0:47:22 > 0:47:24I never felt that I had resolved it properly,
0:47:24 > 0:47:26so, in the way that I do things,
0:47:26 > 0:47:29I was like, "I know, I'll make three of them."
0:47:31 > 0:47:33So, explain this to me.
0:47:33 > 0:47:35This is the staircase.
0:47:35 > 0:47:39- So, if you imagine it that way up. - Oh, yes, of course.
0:47:39 > 0:47:43- Yeah.- So they are stairs that you walk up.- Yeah.
0:47:45 > 0:47:47The detailing, when you start to look at it...
0:47:47 > 0:47:49- Yeah.- It's just like the bookshelves, in a sense.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52- Yeah.- And the books touching the surfaces.
0:47:52 > 0:47:55Well, it is all to do with that ghostly touch of things
0:47:55 > 0:47:59and the way things get worn down by human presence
0:47:59 > 0:48:03and the essence of human is sort of left on these things,
0:48:03 > 0:48:08whether it's the pages of books or staircases or doors or windows.
0:48:11 > 0:48:13What is going on in your own life at that time?
0:48:15 > 0:48:172001?
0:48:17 > 0:48:202001, I was thinking about becoming a mum, actually.
0:48:22 > 0:48:24Which eventually happened -
0:48:24 > 0:48:28and that has been a really amazing part of my life.
0:48:28 > 0:48:31It's been a, you know, a juggling...
0:48:33 > 0:48:36..game and, you know - but we have got through it.
0:48:37 > 0:48:40We have been together for nearly 30 years, you know?
0:48:40 > 0:48:41- Have you really?- Yeah.
0:48:44 > 0:48:45Over 30 years, actually.
0:48:47 > 0:48:50Did your work change at all when the children arrived?
0:48:50 > 0:48:52I mean, you have always been drawn to make things
0:48:52 > 0:48:54from the stuff of everyday life...
0:48:55 > 0:48:59It was really... Got into colour for a while,
0:48:59 > 0:49:02and sort of colour and domestic rubbish, really,
0:49:02 > 0:49:04were the two things that I was playing with -
0:49:04 > 0:49:08and maybe that is something that was from the kids, you know,
0:49:08 > 0:49:11there was more colour about, you know, when the kids arrived,
0:49:11 > 0:49:14all their plastic crap comes with them and, you know,
0:49:14 > 0:49:18your house becomes a sort of different place,
0:49:18 > 0:49:20a different landscape of things.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25And you made that rather beautiful piece with the cast of -
0:49:25 > 0:49:29wasn't it the inner tube of a toilet roll?
0:49:29 > 0:49:33So I started working with all of that stuff and playing, actually,
0:49:33 > 0:49:34I really enjoyed playing.
0:49:41 > 0:49:43MACHINE WHIRS
0:49:55 > 0:49:58Rachel's latest work takes a more destructive approach
0:49:58 > 0:50:00to the stuff of everyday life.
0:50:05 > 0:50:06This is Rachel's shredder.
0:50:20 > 0:50:22When I moved studios, it was a kind of rush,
0:50:22 > 0:50:26and I just couldn't get my head around throwing everything away,
0:50:26 > 0:50:29so I took an awful lot of stuff with me
0:50:29 > 0:50:31and then went through all of my cabinets
0:50:31 > 0:50:33and then started shredding it all.
0:50:33 > 0:50:36I bought three different types of shredder.
0:50:36 > 0:50:37Three different types of shredder?
0:50:37 > 0:50:41Yeah, the ones that had long... you know, some are cross cut,
0:50:41 > 0:50:43so you could make a different sort of texture.
0:51:10 > 0:51:15For her most recent exhibition, at the Lorcan O'Neill Gallery in Rome,
0:51:15 > 0:51:18Rachel has shred the paper trail of her life
0:51:18 > 0:51:22to cast the walls of a 100-year-old shed.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25What emerges is a sort of deconstructed
0:51:25 > 0:51:28Shy Sculpture in flat-pack form.
0:51:32 > 0:51:35One section, entitled Wall Door,
0:51:35 > 0:51:39is made from the shredded correspondence and images of House.
0:51:52 > 0:51:54Others are made from whatever came to hand.
0:51:56 > 0:52:00So this... This is called Wall Apex, and this is cast from...
0:52:00 > 0:52:02With all sorts of different...
0:52:02 > 0:52:05You know, you can see, look, some tomatoes, there.
0:52:07 > 0:52:11- Really?- Yeah. Yeah. There's bits of tomato.
0:52:11 > 0:52:15If you really, sort of, look across the surface, you can pick out words,
0:52:15 > 0:52:18"..period Suite in exquisite..." something, it says there.
0:52:20 > 0:52:22That was an antique furniture catalogue
0:52:22 > 0:52:24that I had that was shredded.
0:52:24 > 0:52:28- You can recognise...- I can recognise what that was, yeah. Yeah.
0:52:31 > 0:52:32It's very...
0:52:34 > 0:52:36Well, someone said it's very, sort of, Proustian,
0:52:36 > 0:52:40but I think it's more OCD than that, actually.
0:52:42 > 0:52:45So, do your family come and say, where's my...?
0:52:46 > 0:52:51- Where is it?- Where's my maths homework gone?- Yes.
0:52:57 > 0:52:58BELL TOLLS
0:53:09 > 0:53:12Also on display in the gallery in Rome,
0:53:12 > 0:53:14in a case like a religious relic,
0:53:14 > 0:53:17is a book Rachel made in collaboration
0:53:17 > 0:53:20with the Irish writer Colm Toibin.
0:53:23 > 0:53:26"When you say that he redeemed the world,
0:53:26 > 0:53:30"I will say that it was not worth it.
0:53:32 > 0:53:34"It was not worth it."
0:53:38 > 0:53:41In 2011, Toibin wrote a one-woman show,
0:53:41 > 0:53:44giving voice to the Virgin Mary,
0:53:44 > 0:53:47who gives a frank, first-hand account
0:53:47 > 0:53:49of the life and death of her son.
0:53:56 > 0:54:00Colm approached Rachel to create images to accompany the text.
0:54:01 > 0:54:03I mean, the reason why we went to see Rachel
0:54:03 > 0:54:06was that there are very ordinary things in this text
0:54:06 > 0:54:08to do with the Virgin Mary.
0:54:08 > 0:54:09She's a human before she's anything.
0:54:09 > 0:54:12She's living in a domestic space before there's anything.
0:54:15 > 0:54:20In the studio, she had this jumble of objects that looked like things
0:54:20 > 0:54:22that anyone could have collected anywhere.
0:54:22 > 0:54:25In other words, what she is brilliant at
0:54:25 > 0:54:27is that idea of the tactfully-made image,
0:54:27 > 0:54:29the purity of it,
0:54:29 > 0:54:34and that whatever happens to you as you look at these images
0:54:34 > 0:54:35is mysterious.
0:54:37 > 0:54:41Some candles - and one of them will have been used and put out.
0:54:43 > 0:54:46The eye just goes there for one second.
0:54:48 > 0:54:52I think I saw something or felt something
0:54:52 > 0:54:54that I cannot fully articulate.
0:54:59 > 0:55:02These were the cheapest things.
0:55:02 > 0:55:04Your enamel, water...
0:55:04 > 0:55:07Just picking something up and looking at it
0:55:07 > 0:55:09and some memory or some emotion
0:55:09 > 0:55:13that was private and secret and was hers.
0:55:13 > 0:55:17It was one that she would then seek to hand to you, to communicate.
0:55:23 > 0:55:25Everything that is used in the book, you know,
0:55:25 > 0:55:29they are all things that are very much a part of our everyday lives.
0:55:32 > 0:55:34Things that mean something to me, though -
0:55:34 > 0:55:37for example, my mother's shoes are in it.
0:55:37 > 0:55:41There are some chairs that I bought with my husband over the years.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45There are candles that I bought at a jumble sale about 30 years ago.
0:55:45 > 0:55:48There are... You know, there are things in it that I've had forever
0:55:48 > 0:55:51in the studio, and have never really known what to do with them.
0:55:54 > 0:56:00"Memory fills my body as much as blood and bones.
0:56:07 > 0:56:13"As the world holds its breath, I keep memory in."
0:56:25 > 0:56:26When I was a little kid,
0:56:26 > 0:56:30I remember so clearly going to the Museum of Childhood.
0:56:33 > 0:56:38It was a long road that, sort of, lead to the heart of the East End,
0:56:38 > 0:56:40the depths of East London...
0:56:46 > 0:56:50..and I just can so remember that feeling of being all excited,
0:56:50 > 0:56:53seeing all these doll's houses and being totally amazed by them.
0:56:59 > 0:57:02These tiny worlds
0:57:02 > 0:57:04of domestic life...
0:57:12 > 0:57:17..and then I can really clearly remember the journeys back,
0:57:17 > 0:57:20taken along this road again, and the night-time,
0:57:20 > 0:57:27and the, sort of, autumnal skies, and the night drawing in early...
0:57:27 > 0:57:28and...
0:57:29 > 0:57:33..counting the lights along the dual carriageway,
0:57:33 > 0:57:35I always remember, was...
0:57:35 > 0:57:40You'd just get, sort of, mesmerised, as you only can when you're a kid.
0:57:40 > 0:57:45Literally count the lights, for the, sort of, 25 miles, and, erm...
0:57:48 > 0:57:53It often would be, work comes from an emotive state,
0:57:53 > 0:57:56or from something that I remember, and then I just...
0:57:58 > 0:58:01..kind of worry that place and see what happens.
0:58:04 > 0:58:06I started to collect doll's houses
0:58:06 > 0:58:09and just building with them almost like building blocks.
0:58:12 > 0:58:15It's a bit macabre, and it's sort of...
0:58:15 > 0:58:18There's parts of it that sort of feel a bit sentimental,
0:58:18 > 0:58:21and other parts that feel quite, you know...
0:58:23 > 0:58:24..nightmarish.
0:58:34 > 0:58:40When my mum passed away, she died very suddenly,
0:58:40 > 0:58:44and my sisters and I found it very hard to pack up her house,
0:58:44 > 0:58:48and we just all, you know, were in, sort of, denial, actually,
0:58:48 > 0:58:49for quite some time.
0:58:52 > 0:58:55We sort of started in the basement and worked up.
0:58:55 > 0:58:58There was this box, and I just kept it.
0:59:00 > 0:59:02My sisters were like, "Chuck that away."
0:59:02 > 0:59:06I was going, "No, no, I'm going to keep that." You know?
0:59:06 > 0:59:09And when I was asked to make something for the Turbine Hall...
0:59:11 > 0:59:15..this box just kept niggling in the corner of my eye.
0:59:15 > 0:59:17It was there going, "Look at me."
0:59:19 > 0:59:23And I decided that what I wanted to do was to cast, you know,
0:59:23 > 0:59:24thousands and thousands of boxes.
0:59:27 > 0:59:28MAN HUMS
0:59:34 > 0:59:37And my mother had never made a penny out of what she did.
0:59:38 > 0:59:42I didn't for a moment expect myself to be a successful artist.
0:59:45 > 0:59:49It was purely about just this dream
0:59:49 > 0:59:54and just having this creative urge that I couldn't stop.
1:00:37 > 1:00:40It's very bodily, which I'm very surprised at.
1:00:42 > 1:00:47Because they have a, kind of, very organic feel to them,
1:00:47 > 1:00:50and I really like that. Yeah, their softness.
1:00:54 > 1:00:57I think my favourite piece is the bookshelf one.
1:00:57 > 1:01:01This ghostly bookshelf where you can see the imprints of each page,
1:01:01 > 1:01:02and it's really quite magical.
1:01:06 > 1:01:10Seeing, like, a mattress by itself,
1:01:10 > 1:01:14kind of, says abandonment - not rejection, but loneliness.
1:01:22 > 1:01:25Everything here is a solidified piece of memory.
1:01:47 > 1:01:48In a way, it's still there.
1:01:50 > 1:01:51It exists as a memory.
1:01:53 > 1:01:55It's an absence of an absence.
1:02:03 > 1:02:06Even when I pass, as I frequently do,
1:02:06 > 1:02:10that point between Roman Road and Globe Road,
1:02:10 > 1:02:14and I can never pass without glancing back,
1:02:14 > 1:02:16just in case it might be there again.