Socio-spatial politics characterise the city and the subcultures that reside within her. This paper is centred on the visual tensions and dialogues embedded in the graffiti which shape and transform the public waterways, drains, tunnels and decommissioned coastal fortifications that cut through Sydney’s built environment. It constructs a revealing portraiture of graffiti’s multimodal engagement to further insights into the politicisation of place in these liminal realms. Nuancing Lefebvre’s (1974) counter spaces of otherness, and Swyngedouw’s (2006) networked phantasmagoria of waterways and sewers, I argue here that graffiti’s transgression intervenes and diverts the socio-political directive of these utilitarian substructures, as well as the symbolic power of the State. Drawing on specific instances, this paper provides evidence of defiant and differentiated forms of visual expression that involve a separation from mainstream norms to reveal alternative narratives which redefines Sydney’s subterranean cavities as a place for pilgrimage, passage, performance and play.

社会空间政治描绘了这座城市和她居住的亚文化。本文以涂鸦中嵌入的视觉张力和对话为中心，这些涂鸦塑造和改造了穿过悉尼建筑环境的公共水道、排水沟、隧道和退役的沿海防御工事。它为涂鸦的多模态参与构建了一幅有启发性的肖像，以进一步洞察这些阈限领域中地方的政治化。对列斐伏尔 (Lefebvre, 1974) 的他者空间和斯温格杜 (Swyngedouw, 2006) 的水道和下水道的网络幻象进行了细致入微的研究，我在此论证，涂鸦的越轨干预并转移了这些功利主义子结构的社会政治指令，以及国家的象征性权力. 借鉴具体实例，