Visual Arts Collective

The Visual Arts Collective (stylized as the VaC) is a multi-purpose fine art gallery, performance and avant garde theatre venue, music venue, movie theatre, and bar in Garden City, Idaho. Established in 2005, it is a mainstay of the greater Boisean artistic community which began with the mission bringing multifaceted elements of art and design to the public, as co-owner Samuel Stimpert noted at its initial location in the Linen District of Boise. "Really, ultimately, we want VaC to be a place that people think of when they think about seeing some great art, or hearing a great band or where they will go when they want a cool new design for their home. VaC is about the experience of all of these elements."
Nationally the venue is notable for playing a logistical role in the genesis of the Treefort Music Fest, as many Portland, Oregon area bands which play SXSW in Austin, Texas typically played there on the return leg home, and for a 2016 free speech lawsuit which is ongoing.
It is a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation grantee.
2016 lawsuit
In September 2016, a free speech lawsuit was filed in federal court against the Idaho State Police by the ACLU of Idaho on behalf of itself, a local repertory theatre troupe, and of neo-burlesque performer Anne McDonald regarding the symbolic speech of artistic female semi-nudity and simulated sex acts in establishments which serve alcoholic beverages -specifically the lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of Idaho Liquor and Obscenity statute 23-614, the terms of which the VaC purports put its liquor license at undue risk and unconstitutionally restricts artistic expression. The VaC had already been cited once, and paid a $8,000 fine.
Former Idaho Attorney General David Leroy averred that "The Legislature originally intended to encourage public morality and prevent bars from being places of depravity... There is nothing wrong with the objective with the Legislature, the question has become in today's society whether these devices or tools are sustainable in a society that reveres free speech and free expression."
The VaC is asking for immediate declaratory and injunctive relief. Having restricted and censored its productions, Tony Award-winning plays included, with the knowledge that undercover cops were now in the audience, it wishes to stage Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's dark political satire The Totalitarians (previously produced by the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.), and indeed all of its shows, without de facto subjective statutory artistic censorship.

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