The realisation that the cardboard boxes, where much of her past and present life were stored, could be turned into sculpture, crept up on her slowly. She started to become more interested in what had once been in the boxes-cans of soup, bolts of materials - than what they currently contained.
-G. Burn, "So Rachel Whiteread, what's with the boxes?," The Guardian, October 11, 2005, pp. 40-46.