An artist is being sought to help design and create a piece of ‘wall art’ for a new sexual assault centre on the Isle of Man.

The Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) will cost around £830,000 and is currently under construction in Braddan.

Once completed, the facility will aim to provide a safe, protective and welcoming space where victims of sexual assault or rape can access care, counselling and support.

Project bosses the Department of Home Affairs (Isle of Man Government) and Manx Care have now issued a public appeal for island artists to come forward and help design the new artwork for the centre.

The organisations have lodged a £10,000 funding application with the Isle of Man Arts Council as part of the project.

If successful, the money will help pay for an art piece to be installed on a wall facing the main entrance leading into the SARC building.

The artist’s brief for the scheme explains: ‘While the building has clinical areas that are vital for the services being delivered, the project sponsors are aware that the experience of users has to also be considered sensitively and the building must “feel” and appear welcoming whilst providing a calm and safe environment.”

Once open, the SARC will be run by both the Department of Home Affairs who will have responsibility for justice issues while Manx Care will deliver care and forensic science services at the site.

Named ‘Thie Darragh’, the services at the centre will be accessed by those self-referring, referrals from the police and other statutory services.

Outlining the brief for the artwork, a spokesperson for the SARC said: ‘The project sponsors have conceived the wall art to be a representation of an oak tree, bending in the wind, standing strong in a storm whilst also embracing the name “Thie Darragh”.

‘It would represent the trauma and “storm” individuals are likely to be dealing with as they enter the building but would also represent the protection and safety they will find at the facility, as well as encouraging users to recognise that, like the oak, they have deep roots and with help can survive the “storm”.

‘The wall art piece...would need to be contained within a space no larger than 3600mm x 1500mm, to be presented on a wall adjacent to [a] proposed poem.

‘The project sponsors are open to the use of a range of materials, and to the wall art feature being “abstract” or “impressionistic”.

‘The sponsors would like the wall art feature to have some relief or possibly project from the wall.

‘Preferred designs will be simple in concept.

‘The use of natural or manufactured materials will be acceptable, as will the use of colour, provided this harmonises with the selected colour scheme for the building entrance. The attached full brief describes the elements of the scheme of art/colours throughout the building, which is the seasonal hues of oak leaves.’

Anyone interested in submitting a design for the project is encouraged to see the full artist’s brief by visiting www.gov.im/about-the-government/statutory-boards/manx-care/sexual-assault-referral-centre-sarc-art-project/

The deadline for submissions for the wall art is 5pm on Monday, July 22.