A MAN staring into the mist-clouded distance, a delicate flower splashed with colour and slowly opening and a figure leaning on a balcony looking into a plain, white, empty room.

These scenes are the focus of some of the pictures at the The University of Brighton’s MA Photography annual degree show.

It presents the work of 13 international, contemporary visual artists from countries including China, Latvia, Hungary, Cyprus and Spain as well as the UK.

Using a range of styles and formats the display explores subjects including masculinity, the European refugee crisis and the trauma of the 2011 Japanese tsunami. and moments of everyday life.

Entitled Counter - Memory, it looks at the idea of uncertain and ambiguous spaces.

One of the most striking is the scene of a man staring into the distance by Georgs Avetisyan. It looks at a village in Latvia, situated between the forest and the sea northwest of the capital Riga.

In the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century it was the second most productive village in the country with 55 sailing ships being built there.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 the economy changed, and in 2004, upon joining the European Union, it changed again on an even wider scale. There were no more barriers between the village and the Western world. The photographer's work looks to show how historical shifts made a huge impact on the society and its dreams, many of which the younger generations abandoned.

He said: "After being away for many years, I decided to return and revisit my homeland through photography, trying to retrace the landscape, and evoke the memories and emotions of the people. This project reflects on their existing relationship with the land and, most importantly, their emotional attachment to the sea, forest and rocks. It is a journey back to the motherland and a return to my childhood. But it is also about the nation as a whole, its values, rituals and traditions.

"It also might be the story of many other places grappling with historical change. This is a search for imagined and real national identity, a creation of place, or perhaps collection of many other places into one place through the operations of memory.

"The village seemed to become a metaphor for a way of life or the passing of time – the past, present and future - and for how time affects and changes our sense of place."

The exhibition, open at the university's gallery in Grand Parade, Brighton, opened on Saturday, September 17 and closes today [23/9]

The gallery is open from 10am until 5pm.