A Cork-born artist has created a Great Wall inspired installation, the first public sculpture by an Irish person commissioned by a Chinese city.

Fion Gunn, a native of Cornmarket Street, now living in London, was behind the Slice of the Land sculpture, which is now on display at a sculpture park in the city of Zhangjiakou, in the north western corner of the Hebei province of North China. The city has 13 sections of the Great Wall, totaling more than 900 miles and built over eight dynasties.

Gunn travelled to China in August for the sculpture commission, having been selected by professor Pan Yiqun, head of sculpture at Tsinghua Academy of Art & Design, Beijing. She joined her contemporaries, American sculptor, Peter Reiquam, Laury Dizengremel (French) and Bharat and Gauri Govinder (Indian) for the international initiative as part of the Zhangjiakou International Sculpture Symposium. The pieces were created in Quyang, southeast of Beijing, with five foreign sculptors and 25 Chinese artists creating their pieces out of one workshop.

“The appointment came up as they were looking for artists across the globe to create work, to show what others are now doing in art,” she said.

The artist, who left Cork 30 years ago, outlined the requirement was to create a piece inspired by the local landscape, with Zhangjiakou famous for its mining and the first site on which the railway in China was built. Made of stainless steel, fibre-glass, stone and ceramic, Slice of the Land is largely influenced by the Great Wall of China. “I’ve been at the Great Wall several times and I brought the aspect of the watch towers into the piece, as they zigzagged across the landscape,” she said.

Gunn added that the addition of windows would allow those visiting the sculpture park to “see the landscape through the landscape”.