Source: The Shape of the Yard
Eleven people have drawn this building. Not one of them has stood in the country it is in.
Behind the curtain+
Volunteers who will never be allowed into North Korea have made it one of the most densely mapped places on earth, and the researcher wrote to them to ask why.
A provenance record follows one object through every hand that held it and is obliged to state where each hand got it from, so the distance between the mappers and the ground becomes a field in the document rather than a thing the writing has to point out.
Object way/243907118. A rectangle, thirty one metres by nine, joined at its north wall to a smaller one.
Province North Hamgyong.
Name Not recorded.
Ground truth None.
2013. Imagery captured, 06:41 local, no cloud. The shadow is long enough to make it three storeys, if you trust shadows.
2014. Traced. The contributor has not entered the country and does not expect to. Tagged building=yes, which is the honest tag.
2016. A courtyard wall added, visible only in winter. The changeset comment reads: my grandmother was from here. Nothing else in eleven years of her edits is in the first person.
2018. building=school added. Source given as the shape of the yard.
2019. building=school removed. Source given as the shape of the yard.
2021. Imagery refreshed. The smaller rectangle is no longer there. Nobody deletes it. It is on the map tonight, held in position by the fact that someone once drew it.
2024. A note opened against the courtyard wall: Is this still in use? Open.
Held by Eleven people, none of whom have stood here.
Gaps in the record Everything between the roof and the floor.