( CNN ) -- A maverick Chinese artist has filled the main hall in London 's famous Tate Modern art gallery with 100 million sunflower seeds . Around 150 tons of seeds have been used to make an inches-thick carpet that visitors to the gallery will be encouraged to play in and crunch under foot . The enormous installation , which opens Tuesday , is the work of artist Ai Weiwei , known as China 's `` Andy Warhol . '' The work is the 11th commission in the internationally acclaimed Unilever Series at the gallery , an annual series kicked off in 2000 by Louise Bourgeois 's spiders and mirrors . Ai 's seeds are porcelain , each one individually handcrafted by laborers in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen . Each tiny piece has been individually molded and hand-painted , according to the gallery . Sunflower seeds are a popular Chinese street snack and one of the country 's most famous exports , according to the gallery . But they hold greater significance for Ai , who spent his childhood in Xinjiang as the son of a celebrated poet exiled by the Chinese communist government during the Cultural Revolution . He told CNN : `` It was very poor and rural there , we had nothing else to enjoy . Sunflower seeds were something basic that everyone could have . Every holiday , wedding or even just going to the movies , we would all share sunflower seeds with one another . I think it 's a very common , very inconspicuous object , but it also has a special relationship to our daily lives ... Of course , during the cultural revolution we all knew that the Sun symbolized the leader , and sunflowers represented the people . So I think these seeds carry multiple meanings . '' Ai is a well-known and controversial figure in China , probably best-known today for the design -- in collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron -- of Beijing 's `` Bird 's Nest '' stadium , built for the 2008 Olympics . Shortly after , Ai -- who is one of China 's leading social activists and bloggers -- distanced himself from the Olympics calling for a boycott and saying the Chinese government was using them as propaganda . In the 1990s , Ai came to international attention when he helped establish the avant-garde East Village in Beijing where a group of artists took up residence in impoverished migrant workers housing on the city 's outskirts . It became a mecca for radical Chinese contemporary artists like Ma Liuming . Other notable large-scale artworks that have filled the Tate Modern 's Turbine Hall include Carsten Hollers ' slides which had visitors shouting with excitement as they slid down ; Olafur Eliasson 's giant projection of the sun in `` The Weather Project '' and a huge crack in the floor courtesy of Doris Salcedo 's `` Shibboleth . ''
Visitors encouraged to play on crunchy carpet of seeds . Eleventh commission in acclaimed Unilever Series . Ai famous for co-designing Beijing 's `` Bird 's Nest '' stadium . The new building will be the first major project by Chinese architect Zaha Hadid since she was named as one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people last year.