Abstract
Brazilian carnival is synonymous with national identity, together with football, a sport for the crowds, and on both lies the complex task of building the seductive image of the mastery of making shows that mainly marks Rio de Janeiro as a cultural and tourist center . The general objective was to analyze the carnival service providers' imaginary about the AIDS disease and its prevention. This study aimed to describe the socio-educational profile of carnival service providers, identify the imagery related to AIDS or HIV and prevention and analyze the meaning of the words HIV and HIV prevention for these service providers in the light of psychoanalysis. The study of the carnival service providers' imagery about HIV prevention is relevant in that it will make it possible to establish a profile of this population, based on the studied dimensions of the HIV prevention imagery and, consequently, it will be able to scale up actions educational activities necessary to consolidate this practice in this population. Results were obtained through data collection, in order to substantiate the conclusion and achieve the objectives with resolutions of the research problem.