No Boundaries debate: Do you want me as part of your audience?

Do you want me as part of your audience? That's what I end up saying to myself a lot as I go and consume art product across the country. I'm hearing impaired, so if something has words I really need captions or subtitles or British Sign Language translation, or even a script in advance or an indication of what the words might be. But these things are really rarely available. They are not part of what we normally provide and I don't understand why.For me art is about communication, it's about getting a message across to an audience. And I always thought artists wanted that audience to be as wide as it could be, to allow as many people to access their work as possibly could. So I'm quite surprised that we haven't yet been able to integrate strands of access into our mainstream delivery, into what we just do as standard. We think 'Oh maybe deaf people it's a small audience.' But it’s not. It's actually quite a big audience. Also things like that help a much wider range of people too. People who've got English as a second language. People consuming material in places where they can't have sound, if you're looking at video material in that kind of way. The only thing I can come back to is that somebody somewhere has made a decision to not include those people. That's the only reason that I can think of for those services not being part of the mainstream. They're not that expensive anymore. Yeah there's time, there’s planning that needs to be taken into account, but it really is quite simple. So do you want me as part of your audience? If so, then include me.